The very generic male-oriented title and the film's basic premise didn't have me very hot on this film, despite starring two actors I like, Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy. In fact I had seen the poster before but had not searched it out thinking it was a male-oriented story with more focus on action and violence than a real story, which it is to some extent.
The plot has several elements that are very recognizable in film, such as the "good" son and the "bad" son, children from a broken home who grow up angry at their father, brothers who are different and find they end up in a competition, where they play out their resentments.
Nick Nolte plays Paddy Conlon, a recovering alcoholic living alone. He has burned bridges with his sons, favoring Tommy (Hardy) over Brendon (Edgerton), although Brendon was the one who stayed with him when he divorced their mother. Both are angry at him as well as each other. They all have a boxing background.
Brendon is a teacher with mortgage problems so takes amateur fights on the side, not telling his wife; he gets in trouble at school because of this. Tommy returns to town and gets back into boxing (the type that involves kicking and wrestling type moves as well as the normal punching--pretty much anything goes). Tommy convinces Paddy to be his trainer, and a manager at a boxing club agrees to help Tommy get into a $5 million purse boxing match called Sparta.
Brendon decides to enter this contest with the help of a friend who owns a boxing club too, one that is more holistic in its mindset. Meanwhile, Tommy is recognized in a YouTube video as a heroic Marine, but has shunned that exposure.
The very ordinary plot somehow works due to the acting of the three leads, helped by a big sports-inspirational story and patriotic score. Obviously there is little suspense that the two brothers eventually will fight against each other in the competition, although the film shows us two nemeses they have to go up against first. Tommy's fights are short so we don't see as much determination and stamina as in Brendon, who has to pull out every little smidge of strength and endurance he has, since he is a less brutal fighter. It is a matter of how each of the two characters approach the sport, as well as their life--Tommy is the sprinter going hard and fast, while Brendon is the slow and steady marathoner who looks into the future.
Nick Nolte also gives a good performance in the first parts of the film as a broken dad sincerely trying to patch up his life and facing up to the anger of his sons, but his character doesn't get much screen time near the end during the competition where the fight action ramps up. This part needed more of a resolution for the three guys, and not just for the two brothers. Paddy listens to books on tape of
Moby Dick, which is an obvious reference to his life.
The choppy camera work during the fights I wished were a little less up close and less handheld to see what was going on. I think more smoothly filmed full body shots of the fights would make it easier to understand the action of the fight, although I could feel anxiety in the audience. There was a lot of testosterone on screen, I am not kidding.
Mickey is given a client lead from a bail bondsman (John Leguizamo). Louis (Ryan Phillippe), a son of a wealthy real estate agent (Frances Fisher), is accused of beating a woman he met at a bar. He claims he is the victim, that he was jumped when he went to her apartment. She claims he beat her and tried to rape/murder her. Mickey finds out salacious facts about the woman, so her case starts to appear like she is gold-digging for a big settlement. But soon he is also finding out facts about Louis and his mother too.
