MTV News writes of their top ten portrayals of God in the movies. I liked Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty and particularly remember liking George Burns in Oh, God! I’m a little apprehensive about Ellen DeGeneres remaking that role, though. Ugh.

So last night I decided to watch one of the two Netflix movies I had here for the longest time.  Now, let me tell you, I’m no movie expert.  Usually if there’s enough drama, action, or comedy to keep my short attention span, I’m good.  My movie reviews would cause both Siskel and Ebert to roll over in their graves (I’m pretty sure they’re both dead, right?).

But as ignorant as my opinion may be, I couldn’t keep silent about Fighting Tommy Riley.  What a horrible stinkin’ movie this was.  And it had promise at the beginning.  I like movies about boxing.  There would be action.  But that’s about it.  So here’s my take on it, and be warned, this is a spoiler.  Then again, there’d have to be something to spoil…

It started out as a typical boxing movie.  Old trainer spots a young boxer who has some potential and takes him on as his special project.  That’s about two thirds of the boxing movies out there.  They go off to a secluded spot to work out for the big fight.  Lots of movies do that too (although that’s not a very realistic boxing training technique: who is the fighter supposed to spar with?).  But then I started to get uncomfortable.  The trainer does a lot of massaging after a workout, which you see in the old movies, but that’s about it.  And the massaging gets to be, um, well, problematic, revealing a side of the old trainer’s personality that has plagued him from the beginning of his own career as a young boxer.

But Tommy’s an understanding kid, and gets over it.  He goes on to win the big fight, and ends up with a title shot (after two fights?).  But the promoter says, of course, that to get the title shot, Tommy has to sign on with his own people and be trained by his trainers.  Tommy would have to say goodbye to the trainer that he had grown to love (but not in that kind of way, if you know what I mean).  Tommy wouldn’t hear of it, and even despite his current manager’s urging, and the forceful urging of the old trainer, plans to refuse the offer.

So, back at the gym, the old trainer decides to take a different tack to get Tommy to make the move.  He treats him like shit, much as Tommy’s first trainer (his stepdad) did.  This ends up in an argument, bad things are said, and (the trainer hopes) Tommy is out of there.  But T0mmy shows up at the old man’s house to apologize, and that doesn’t go that well.  He finally leaves, and the old man kills himself.

So this is basically the feel-bad movie of the year.  From feeling uncomfortable with the massaging, to getting angry when the massaging goes too far, to being ticked off when the trainer kills himself, this movie brought out no good emotions in me.  On Netflix, I gave it one star (“hated it”), and even that was too much as far as I was concerned.