With the Summer Olympics set to open in just a week, this seemed like an interesting film to catch. I truly wasn't prepared in advance for how much I'd like it! Clever -- even laugh out loud -- dialogue, an interesting script, a certain quirkiness, all add up to my favorite feel-good movie of this year. It's a comfortable and easy film to watch with lots of tender humanity.
Despite Jerry Ferro's (Adam Carolla) best friend Ozzie (Oswaldo Castillo) giving him a commuter mug when Jerry picked up Ozzie to go to work, Jerry's 40th birthday went down from there. The building contractor Jerry and Ozzie work for is a jerk, a bigot, and verbally abusive and insulting. When Jerry and Ozzie pull a prank they know will cause damage to the contractor's truck, they are promptly fired.
Jerry goes home to the apartment he shares with his girlfriend Nicole (Constance Zimmer) to find she's bored with the relationship and wants out. Nope, not a good day at all. And after years of bouncing from job to job, relationship to relationship, Jerry's left feeling hollow.
But Jerry has a place to go. A former Golden Gloves boxer who gave up on the sport for himself when he was 19, he still teaches a 6 p.m. beginners' boxing class at the Broadway Gym in LA. He talks the owner into giving some carpentry and repair work to Ozzie to tide him over, and maybe give himself a bit of carpentry work, too.
That very afternoon, Eddie Bell (Tom Quin), a big time trainer, says he'll give Jerry $10 to spar with an up-and-coming young soon-to-be pro, the cocky Malice Blake (Jeff Lacy). Despite getting knocked around some, Jerry lands a knockout punch and suddenly he finds himself heading back into competitive boxing with an eye to the 2008 Olympics.
Meanwhile, Jerry is smitten with the charming yet kooky Lindsay Platt (Heather Juergensen), a public defender who is taking Jerry's boxing class. They have some really funny dates and, of course, fall in love. But when Lindsay gets a major job offer in another state, both Jerry and Lindsay need to evaluate what they mean to each other.
Harold House Moore and Jonathan Hernandez play Robert Brown and Hector Padilla, to young and talented boxers who befriend Jerry.
Directed by Charles Herman Wurmfeld. From a story by Adam Carolla.
A few side notes here, gleaned from the bonus material on the DVD I watched:
+ Scriptwriter Kevin Hench is not only one of Carolla's best friends, he's also married to the lead actress, Heather Juergensen.
+ Carolla truly was a Golden Gloves boxer and also a journeyman carpenter before he got into show biz.
+ Carolla and Oswaldo "Ozzie" Castillo have been friends for about 18 years. They worked together as carpenters for years and, in fact, helped build the very Broadway Gym which is used in the film.
+ Castilla, from Nicaragua, had never acted before. He was actually a paramedic training to be a doctor when he had to escape his country due to the political unrest, and traveled up through Mexico and across the border in the trunk of a Cadillac with several other people. He got a job quickly and saved up to bring his wife and son into the USA.
+ In real life, Tom Quin is a boxing trainer.
Run Time: 1 hour, 28 minutes
Rated R for brief language -- which amount to two F-bombs, quick and appropriate. No other "language" that I caught and I think it's a darned shame that it got the R rating because many who would really enjoy it will now miss it.
My personal rating: A-
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