Some things I liked some I did not.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

I watched this twice and almost got off on it. I was very disappointed that Stacy Keach gave us such a weak boxing movie - I thought I recalled that he did one a lot better than this, but at least he kept his hands off the real star - Kelly Adams, grrr. Must be thousands of us who are in love with her!

i've just finished watching the movie and wanted to see how it was rated on IMDb. it seems people didn't like it very much, well, i did... i'm not terribly interested in boxing/ fighting movies as a rule. i don't usually watch them. still, this one caught my eye. the scenario has some clichés,the theme of becoming someone from no one has been used in hundreds of films, from Cinderella to Karate Kid.but maybe the director didn't care very much about the scenario itself. it's not just another boxing movie, it's not about fighting in the ring, it's about fighting in life. i liked the atmosphere (smoky light, beautiful classic music), which is rather poetic and meditative, as if someone had tried to make a nice painting of a fighting scene.

Movies this thin on story can sometimes work if they care deeply about the theme they revolve around, and portray it in an exciting way. In this case it was the world of boxing and The Boxer falls hopelessly short. *Spoiler* A kid with no experience at all undergoes a quick karate kid training montage and is able to skip the amateur boxing circuit, go straight into the professional fight game and get a world title shot, without ever having sparred. Seems anyone can become a world champion athlete these days if they train for a couple weeks.Choreography is weak with boring camera work and untrained boxers. The film is riddled with the familiar including the pantomime villain, tired coach, reluctant fighter with checkered past (see From Here To Eternity) and aforementioned use of training montage. The Boxer adds nothing new to the genre and executes its clichéd and predictable plot lazily. 2/10

I just finish watching "The Boxer" and this movie had a lot of potential but being a "white collar" boxer myself, I just couldn't help noticing the mistakes they kept making in the film. The Movies starts of about a young man who just got out of prison and wants to start a new life. Now usually when a prisoner gets out of jail, they set him up with some info like where to stay like a boarding house or shelter, and usually the prisoner may have a few bucks put away from working in the jail. The guy on his first day out starts sleeping in Skid Row?! The young man starts to try to contact his mother via a phone call but she wants no part of him, which of course builds up the curiosity. The "Ben" character tries to find work but to no avail until he finds a "cleaner wanted" sign on a boxing gym door. Ben character goes into gym to inquire about job and meets the Gym Owner/Trainter character played by Great Veteran Actor Stacy Keetch. Mr. Keetch does a OK job explaining the old line of "boxing is 90% mental, 10% physical" quote. You can probably guess that they would execute that movie formula of "teacher never likes student at first but warms up to him" scenario. Eventually after much resistance from Ben not to learn to box, he caves in and takes lessons from the Keetch character. Now this is where the "hollywood magic" gets a bit hokey. The guy fights like 3 fights, and somehow Stacey gets him in a Light Heavyweight title match eliminator? In the "Real" world, he would have to get at least some amateur fights in, plus at least 20 or some professional fights to at least get in the position. But the director seems to want to rush the movie, that might work in CSI but not in boxing. By the way, there's a "bad guy" in this movie as well played very well by O'Shea Miles even though his boxing style didn't look very professional but he made up for it by his bad attitude. Oh, there's also a love interest (like always) and shes happens to be the girlfriend of ..guess what?...The bad guy! I don't want to give away to much on this movie, but I believe that even though boxing is considered the "poor mans" sport, doesn't mean it should get poor scripting. This could have work with better writing, more realistic buildup of the fighters skills and career. This was a poor, poor man's version of "Million Dollar Baby". shame.