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Liev Schreiber shines as the real-life fighter who inspired
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longside baseball, the sport of boxing has provided a seemingly inexhaustible
supply of stories for movies to tell. Brutal, lonely and intimately attuned to the
American experience of aggressive individualism, boxing exposes the loutish
violence that is the secret endgame of all conflict. It just reverses the order.
Crudely put, boxing movies typically break into two distinct categories: the
underdog who triumphs (Rocky) and the champion who unravels (Raging Bull). There are
variations on the two themes but, in general, these tragic-heroic categories have offered
more than enough mythological fuel to keep boxing movies on the screen long after the
sport itself has fallen into general disregard.
Working with a script co-written by Jerry Stahl (Permanent Midnight), Canadian-born
director Philippe Falardeau complicates the Rocky-Raging Bull paradigm with Chuck, a
boxing movie that touchingly overflows its own limited pretensions. The film is warm,
funny and surprisingly moving. It dances like a butterfly and stings like a bee.
Based on a true story, Chuck centers on the moderate rise and unspectacular fall of
Chuck Wepner, the New Jersey fighter who challenged Muhammad Ali for the heavy-
weight title in 1975. Nicknamed the “Bayonne Bleeder,” Wepner — famous for his ability
to take a punch — was the real-life inspiration for Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa.
As Wepner, Liev Schreiber is pitch-perfect; he brings an irresistible charm to the role of
an immature, star-struck goon of a man who is less concerned with winning than with the
adulation he receives as a punch-drunk folk hero. The film is by turns wince-worthy and
heartbreaking, as Schreiber bumbles and flails through life, the bemused fuck-up you want
to forgive just one more time.
And Schreiber is surrounded by a dream cast: Elisabeth Moss as his distressed, im-
possibly dignified wife; Ron Perlman as his gruff manager; Jim Gaffigan as the toadying
friend, always hovering by his side; Pooch Hall, who excels in the difficult role of Ali; and
Michael Rapaport as Chuck’s estranged brother.
One of the film’s greatest pleasures is watching the embattled chemistry that devel-
ops slowly between Chuck and the wise, wizened bartender he romances, played by Sch-
reiber’s real-life wife, Naomi Watts. It’s a treat to watch two such accomplished actors
bounce off each other with such poise — think of the wry, sexy heat that sparked between
Bogart and Bacall.
Chuck adds absolutely nothing to the outward architecture of the standard biopic; it
hits all the familiar points of interest, and it does so on a reduced scale that is completely
in keeping with its subject. The film is so formalized that, at times, it plays like an expert
homage to Martin Scorcese by way of Paul Tomas Anderson, complete with coked-up boo-
gie nights, slapstick masculinity and a marble-mouthed voice-over by Schreiber.
And yet, because it never swings wildly for the knockout punch, Chuck achieves a
level of authenticity that is rather remarkable, thanks in large part to the vulnerability of
Schreiber’s performance. This is a quietly explosive film that moves with uncommon grace
within its own squared parameters, like Ali dancing around the ring. And it pulls a kind of
rope-a-dope on your emotions, wearing you down with beautiful, excruciating scenes of
humanity. Unlike most movies of its kind, its posture is defensive, forever throwing up the
gloves against the next haymaker.
In a season of endlessly recycled aliens and superheroes, Chuck is one of the sleeper hits
of the year — a bittersweet boxing film whose toughest jabs come from the hard knocks
of everyday life: marriage, family, parenting and surviving our own stupidity before, on
quaking knees, we stand up to take another swipe. (Bijou Art Cinemas)
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