Against the Ropes is Meg Ryan's latest diversion to keep herself away from the realm of sappy romantic comedies. She plays boxing-obsessed Jackie Kallen who, through a series of unlikely mishaps, discovers middleweight fighter Luther Shaw (Omar Epps) and successfully navigates him to the top in a business that is notoriously a boys-only club.
Jackie Kallen is an actual person, but how much of the story is true is highly questionable. The film feels extremely lightweight and Hollywood-ized, and much of that blame falls on Ryan. With her Brooklyn accent and slinky, leopard-print outfits, she tries to Erin Brokovich her way through the role. But she never quite comes off as tough-as-nails. At best, she manages spunky.
At first, the film follows the underdog-sports-movie formula. As a result, Jackie, being the manager rather than the athlete, starts to feel a little superfluous. After a while, the movie switches gears and focuses on Jackie, and becomes a story about the corruption and betrayals caused by success. At that point, we're interested in Jackie again, but we don't like her anymore.
Tony Shalhoub plays the cartoonishly evil villain, rival boxing manager Larocca, and juggles several glaring inconsistencies. At first, he has so little faith in Jackie's abilities that he offers to sell one of his prizefighters to her for $1. Shortly thereafter, he hears she has some no-name boxer training in a gym and becomes so worried that he starts taking steps to interfere with the training.
Being too pleasant to hate, the movie winds up having no impact whatsoever. The boxing scenes, with the exception of the final fight, are dull. Partly, this is because of the timing and choreography, and partly it is simply because we haven't invested any emotion in Luther Shaw and his Cliff Notes version of Rocky. Instead, we're asked to focus on Jackie and her story, followed by countless boxing matches. But Jackie's story lies behind the matches. Aside from a little cheerleading, she has nothing to do at the actual fights. She's the manager, not the trainer. That clichéd role rests with director Charles S. Dutton, who plays it the way it's always played, and he looks really bored doing it.
Against the Ropes, like In the Cut, ultimately ends up being nothing but another failed acting exercise for Meg Ryan. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I hope she goes back to making those movies with Tom Hanks.