Shawn (Channing Tatum) lives in a dingy hotel in New York City. No explanation of why. He sells crappy used books in the street, where one day he meets two people who will--gasp!--change his life!! One is a beautiful girl (you knew that was coming; she's played by Zulay Henao). The other is Harvey (Terence Howard, the only actor and character worth mentioning), a small time hustler that is getting by.
Harvey sees Shawn beat off some street toughs and after another chance meeting convinces Shawn to be an underground fighter for big bucks. His purses go from $5,000, to $10,000, to $30,000 and finally the big $100K fight (where he finally gets his pretty boy looks dirtied a little).
During the course of events, he meets an old schoolmate, who happened to be the rival of his dad's affection (just a premise for the big showdown, as this is the guy Shawn fights at the end; nothing is explained about the dad except this incident). I couldn't care less about Shawn (nor the romance), he had no dreams until Harvey started talking about them, and in several instances, betrays Harvey in little ways. In fact it was the Harvey character who, for me, was the man to watch. He came to New York with dreams (and they're not even grandiose ones, he just wants to open an IHOP), but got nowhere and was savvy enough at least to make some sort of living as a hustler and be pretty much resigned to that. I'm not sure if he sees Shawn as a ticket out, but it's potentially "out" enough for him to grovel to the bigger fight managers on behalf of Shawn. That's a major point about Shawn's character, all he knows is the fighting and the money, and not how Harvey has to lower himself and take insults.
At the time I thought the actor who plays Shawn, Channing Tatum, needed a few more acting jobs under his belt to be a convincing actor. In this film, he mumbles his lines or stammers as if he is an aw shucks innocent from the sticks (Shawn's from Alabama but has no southern accent). Other than his pretty face, his build and acting are both too slight for the role and his acting here is pretty wooden and emotionless. Since then I think he has improved but still I think is better suited for comedy than drama, as in dramatic roles he mostly comes off as wooden and unconvincing.
The film has too many glamour and establishing shots of New York for a film that is about a "seedy" side of the city. And for someone who sleeps on park benches and dilapidated mattresses and sells books on the sidewalk, Shawn was a very clean guy, he didn't even look dirty enough to take a bath in a public toilet.
And oh, I didn't even mention the fights. Fight number one--Shawn was losing until he knocked the guy against a porcelain sink and knocked him out. Fight two--against a bruiser/bouncer type, he was losing and in a chokehold until one of his lackeys kicks the opponent, loosing his grip. After these two ludricous "wins" he is considered the hot ticket. Fight three--against a noted Asian kick boxer who was beating the crap out of him until suddenly Shawn gets HIM in a chokehold, does a bodyslam and wins. In none of these fights does he get cut, bruised or swollen. Fight four--against his old nemesis, on a rooftop terrace in a highrise, I was expecting someone to fall to his death, but no, instead of throwing the fight as Harvey wanted/needed, he bets all their money on himself and wins instead, a fairytale ending more germane to a sports underdog film than a gritty drama. Where Shawn learned all these moves, who knows. That's a lot of words for a movie I didn't particularly like. I'm certainly not the audience intended for this film, but other testosterone dominated movies like Warriors manages to make a dramatically believable and sympathetic story out of its male characters without leaving out the action.
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