[allBthere]

Saw the movie "Bleed for this" which is Vinny Pazienza's story.

I forgot the movie came out and was pumped for it, but for me it fell short in many areas which is unfortunate. Even as a life-long boxing fan I didn't know the extent of Vinny's great career and didn't know about his injury either.

So the actual story is utterly amazing, but the film-making falls flat in many areas - not all - but enough that for me the movie was just 'ok'.

That said, the movie is sort of for boxing fans because they don't explain a ton and just kind of expect you to know - for example - kevin rooney I know who he is, but watched with my wife who knows almost nothing about boxing. She didn't realize he trained Mike Tyson, and although they mention it in the movie it's glossed over and won't really hit home with non-boxing people. There is a lot of that there where you just are supposed to know. Another example is Roberto Duran, Vinny moving up 3 weight classes in 2 fights, and post-accident is a fabrication because he fought a few times before Duran - but they don't let the viewer know how famous and HOF material Duran is...it's for the middleweight title in the movie, but they don't create the mystique required to introduce someone like Duran.

The film-making also fell flat on highlights, emotional moments and crescendo's .. maybe just trying to be different? Sometimes the tried and true is that way for a reason.

The actual boxing? No movie has really done it that well and my favourite is still Gladiator (the boxing one from the 90s) ... loved that lol ... but here it's not terrible - it's better than southpaw (terrible) and sort of like Creed (decent) but with less haymaking connects.

Finally, it's a bit strange they used poetic justice for in-ring performance and less for out of ring. Example; his first fight at jr middle they had him KO his opponent in round 1? In real life it was a 11th round tko that was kind of strange. I understand keeping the film run-time down but there is other pots they could have condensed, could have used montage etc...

Vinny is/was sort of a weird guy - like living at home while being a 2 time world champion? not drinking alcohol, but having a gambling problem? lol

If nothing else it made me look him up - all I really saw of him growing up was his later career fights, I didn't realize how good he was, and how much power he had for a smaller guy. Later in his career he avoided engaging too much and did that whole walk sideways and fix his shorts thing - lots of flash w/o too much sizzle.