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'Resurrecting the Champ'

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BY GENE SEYMOUR | gene.seymour@newsday.com

August 24, 2007

Most of Rod Lurie's movies have thus far been triumphs of inflation. Melodramas such as 2000's "The Contender" and 2002's "The Last Castle" are pumped up by schematic plots and Manichean black and white characterizations. "Resurrecting the Champ" breaks this pattern by conflating its many story lines and giving us morally grayer people to root for. Viewed one way, this is growth. Viewed another way, it's the same hyped-up frenzy with a wider lens.

Adapted from a magazine article by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter J.R. Moehringer, "Resurrecting the Champ" is, on one level, a story of a homeless man known only as "The Champ" (Samuel L. Jackson) because he claims to have had a shot at a title decades ago. Denver sportswriter Erik Kernan (Josh Hartnett), struggling to match the legacy of his late broadcaster father, sees the derelict's story as his "title shot" - and a chance to prove himself to his little boy Teddy (Dakota Goyo) that all that talk about being pals with John Elway and Muhammad Ali isn't just hot air.

But, of course, it is. And there are times when the rhetorical air in "Resurrecting the Champ" assumes a kind of sultriness, especially when it tries to probe such dualities as fathers and sons, truth and fiction, professional ethics and the spoils of ambition.

When "Resurrecting the Champ" climbs off its high horse and makes itself comfortable within the contours of daily newsroom life, with its alternating languor and tension, the movie feels authentic and lived-in. Alan Alda is excellent as Erik's grumpy sports editor.

And speaking of lived-in, Jackson, as you might have expected, delivers a bravura performance as the sad-eyed, gristly bum-who-would-have-been-a-contender. His presence leaves sorrowful echoes even when the story leaves him to poke around the mess Erik's made of his relationship with his estranged wife (Kathryn Morris) and his own self- respect.

The aftermath of the article's publication gives the characters plenty of room to mouth off about honesty and morality in journalism. Yet none of these effusions show the conviction or energy of Teri Hatcher, in a ripe, juicy cameo as a cable TV producer who vows to make an on-camera star out of Erik.

Hatcher's dark eyes glisten with merry mischief when she says people now care more about being entertained than informed. Here, you suspect, is the movie's real heart of darkness whose warning cry is being stifled by piety and sentiment.

RESURRECTING THE CHAMP (PG-13). Samuel L. Jackson is an ex-boxer found living on the streets of Denver by Josh Hartnett's hungry young sportswriter eager for a major story. The movie takes on more than it can handle, yet keeps you engrossed because of its often inspired performances. 1:41 (scattered vulgarities, violence). At area theaters.