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10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Only the audience is against the ropes, 7 November 2004
Author: Roland E. Zwick (magneteach@aol.com) from United States

Though ostensibly based on a true story, 'Against the Ropes' is pure movie hokum from start to finish.

Jackie Kallen made a name for herself as one of the few successful female managers in the history of professional boxing. In the movie's prologue, we meet Jackie as a young girl so obsessed with the sport that she spends her off hours at the gym helping her dad train her uncle, a fighter who died very early in his career. Years later, Jackie, on a dare, agrees to manage her own player - if only she can find a talent who will be willing to put his life and his career in the hands of an untried but determined woman. She alights on Luther Shaw, a drug-dealer-with-a-heart-of-gold whom she picks up in the nearby projects. Luther is, for the most part, a fictional character, a composite, we're told, of several of the fighters Kallen led to victory in the ring.

Regardless of how much of this is fiction or nonfiction, 'Against the Ropes' fails to generate any heat either as a character study or as a human drama. We're supposed to find all this interesting simply because Kallen is an attractive woman trying to prove herself in a man's world. Yet, the story is hackneyed, the dialogue corny, the characters and their conflicts trite and underdeveloped. The Cheryl Edwards screenplay is so sketchy and poorly articulated that we often don't understand why characters are behaving the way they are, particularly when it comes to the rough-and-tumble relationship between Jackie and Luther. One moment they are getting along swimmingly, and the next Jackie is strutting around blowing her own horn while Luther sits pouting in the corner. Whole episodes, which could have gone a long way towards explaining the characters' motivations, seem to have been dropped from the finished product at the last minute.

Kallen is obviously a change-of-pace role for Meg Ryan who generally plays the innocent ingénue lead in romantic comedies. Yet, despite the fact that she is a trifle more serious here and even gets to work with an accent (the mark of any 'serious' performer looking to buck up her credentials), the movie itself is so lacking in tension and grit and so determinedly upbeat and optimistic that it really doesn't give the actress a whole lot of opportunity to truly stretch those acting muscles. In fact, in the final scene, the film turns into little more than a vanity production for the waning star. Omar Epps fares a bit better, turning in a performance of strength and dignity, though the script lets him down by failing to develop his character to any appreciable extent.

The one fight scene is only moderately well executed and comes way too late in the film for anyone interested in the sport to still be hanging around ringside at that point. In fact, no one comes even close to scoring a knockout blow in 'Against the Ropes' - not Ryan, not Epps and certainly not the audience. 'Against the Ropes' is a sucker punch all the way.

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11 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Um......, 9 March 2006

Author: mlionfire from Saigon, Viet Nam

I sat through all of this... and I have to say that it is another colossal and predictable waste of celluloid... Mz. Ryan is terribly miscast and nowhere near tough enough for this type of role... and that lace-up leather number she has on really accentuates the worst of her physical stature... I wish I could say something good about this movie... Meg Ryan has given us some pretty good movies in the past, but I can't seem to find any redeeming qualities... The whole thing needs a remake, with a different cast, as I believe that Jackie Kallen's story is valid to boxing history and should be told...

I thought that Tony Shalhoub, the actor who is Jackie's rival (also plays Monk on TV)has turned in a sight better performances than this before... sorry, but this is one dog of a movie you should avoid...

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10 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
An Erin Brockovich Boxing Movie, 20 November 2004

Author: christian123

Meg Ryan plays a Jewish woman from Detroit who strives to become a successful boxing manager despite facing many obstacles, including an unscrupulous boxing promoter, played by Tony Shalhoub. Against the Ropes looks at the relationship between Kallen and her first professional boxer, played by Omar Epps.

Against the Ropes is your typical Lifetime movie of the week feature that somehow made it to theaters. It had nice intentions but the film is not very good or strong. The story is very uninspired and it reminded me of Erin Brockovich. Against the Ropes tried too hard to be like Erin Brockovich and other boxing films without really being its own film. Also, most of the film is pretty dull and there are no real good performances. Meg Ryan is okay as Jackie Kallen. She was a little weak in the dramatic scenes and sometimes her emotions felt really fake. Her outfits were really trashy and this took away from her already less than stellar performance.

Meg Ryan is paired up with Omar Epps and he gives a decent performance. However, his chemistry with Meg is really weak. This hurts the film a lot since the whole movie was basically their relationship. Tony Shalhoub gives an okay performance but there really wasn't a lot for his character to do. Charles S. Dutton gives an okay performance as Felix. Again, there really wasn't much for his character to do. Dutton also directs the film and he does an okay job. He could have developed the characters a little more and he could have done a better job at capturing the relationship between Jackie and Luther. The film is very predictable and very simple. The boxing scenes are good but they pale in comparison to other boxing films like Rocky. In the end, this really is a weak film that's not worth watching. Rating 4/10

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Not at all interesting to me, 27 December 2005

Author: hppg from Australia

"Against the Ropes" is essentially a boxing drama. Meg Ryan plays Jackie, a woman who was interested in boxing from a young age and eventually triumphs over obstacles to become a successful boxing manager. I know practically nothing about the sport of boxing and even less about the management of boxers so to be honest I don't find Jackie's achievement - apparently she is the most successful female boxing manager - to be that great. I do admire the way she was tough and dealt with men, but the film really suffered from a weak script and boring scenes, particularly boxing ones. I had heard a lot about Skye McCole Bartusiak playing little Jackie, but she barely appeared at all! Jackie was portrayed as not having much substance, and Meg Ryan was quite good but looked like a bimbo. I suspect this film holds no interest for those who aren't really into boxing; it also doesn't manage to get you engaged like a better film would. 2 out of 10.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Omar Epps looks like a woman on the box cover, 15 July 2004
Author: (caspian1978@hotmail.com) from Attleboro, MA

A movie with its moments, most of the moments being bad, bad, bad. The Studio shelved this un-winner for a few years for good reasons, they did not know if an audience for this movie existed. At times, the direction of the film created some nice visuals but nothing else. A lot of the cutting between scenes jumped without any story between more scene to another. Kind of jumpy and fast, the movie tries to find its story somewhere at the half way point, and doesn't mind it. Meg Ryan once again proves herself by doing another different film that leaves the audience still guessing. Giving up her innocent / beauty roles for the more serious, she tries to jump back into comedy to try her beauty and charm again. The only problem is that the audience gave up going to see her role in those movies to see her as a serious actress. Much like Omar Epps looking like a woman on the poster and cover of the movie box, this movie makes you turn your head to one side like a confused dog.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Meg tries to re-invent herself....again., 15 July 2004

Author: Greg (gregmoroberts@yahoo.com) from Oakville, Ontario

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Boxing is one of the few sports that has transcended well onto the big screen. Raging Bull, Rocky I & II and even 1992's more comedic effort Diggstown each offered an exciting and or interesting look at the corrupt, gruesome and barbaric sport of boxing. Even less accomplished films like The Great White Hype and Michael Mann's Ali are still better than the Major League's, Slap Shots or Victory's that other sports have produced on film. With nary a misstep, you could get the impression that boxing movies were a failsafe option. That was until now. New to DVD this week is Against the Ropes, a boxing film that is yet another vehicle to re-invent and re-energize Meg Ryan's persona. This stab has Meg playing Jackie Kallen, a true-to-life famous boxing promoter that used her skills and sex appeal to puncture the male dominated sports arena. Stuck as an executive assistant, Jackie stands up to the vile boxing promoter LaRocca (Tony Shalhoub) and ends up buying a boxers contract for the bargain basement price of a dollar. Upon attempting to contact her new acquisition, Jackie is introduced to Luthur Shaw (Omar Epps) who bursts on to the scene to rough up a few drug users in the rundown apartment complex. Seeing talent in the way Shaw handled himself, Jackie bails him out of jail and offers him a chance to box professionally, which he reluctantly accepts after her persistent aggression. With a boxer now under her wings, Jackie pursues retired trainer Felix Reynolds (Charles S. Dutton) to chisel off the rough edges and make Shaw the boxer we all know he will end up before we see the first credit at the ass end of the film. But things can't be that smooth for Ms. Kallen or they wouldn't have optioned the story for a movie, and obstacles come in the form of LaRocca's influence on the sport and how he is able to keep Jackie's fighter to insignificant, under-card fights. Jackie's fights with other venues and boxing promoters to circumvent LaRocca's unfair decision gets the royal treatment by the sports media and soon her head gets bigger than most boxing purse payouts. This would then lead to the anxiety on behalf of Shaw and his eventual run to LaRocca for the respect, money and limelight he thinks he is entitled. Directed by Charles S. Dutton (there's that name again), Against the Ropes is a misfired attempt at what was probably a Seabiscuit type story of a female breaking in ranks with the big guys. But as the movie plods along with some unnecessary and almost laughable accents by Shalhoub and Ryan, we find that we don't care about the characters, can see things scenes before they unfold and we are reminded that boxing can sometimes be more of a who you know rather than what you can do kind of experience. Maybe most notable was the effort by Ryan who with last years In The Cut and now with Against the Ropes is trying to have everyone forget that she has dimples and is nothing if not for the actors to which she is surrounded (and with all due respect to Omar Epps, you are no Tom Hanks). Where Julia Roberts was a little more effortless in her brazen role as Erin Brockovich, Ryan seems to be trying to hard to re-invent herself. Her swagger was probably a mock of the real Kallen's walk, but coupled with the heavy deep-throated voice, it just doesn't play out as natural enough and is therefore more distracting than believable. Also noted are how each of the characters offered nothing new to those viewers that either watch boxing as a spectator sport or who have enjoyed boxing films in the past. There is the out-for-myself promoter (Shalhoub), the reporter who is always on the side of the good guys (Tim Daly), the trainer you know will get his fighter in shape in record time….etc., etc., etc., …. So with all this going against it, I recognize that this is a boxing movie and I had hoped that the boxing sequences are exciting enough to keep us on the edge of our seats and forget all that leads up to them. Nope. Against the Ropes fails there too. The boxing sequences seem amateurish in how they were shot and orchestrated. Gone are the smashing sound effects of body blows and jabs that made Rocky such a smack to the senses. Instead, they are replaced with phantom punches and screen shots from the cheap seats of a large arena. Too easy a cliché to pass up, Against the Ropes is no TKO. Instead, I felt like the experience was a draw put in the hands of corrupt judges and this judge gives it a thumbs down.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
against the audience?, 25 August 2007
Author: Senyales from Fraggle Rock

Said to be based on a true story, 'Against the Ropes' is not as effective as other movies of this genre. The story does not grip and even as a character study it fails. The screenplay is quite poor (and predictable), the characters are half-baked, the dialogues are dull and it has nothing new to offer. Cheryl Edwards expects to understand what's going on but we are always questioning what the motivation of the characters were.

Meg Ryan looks very hot and she does the best she could with an ill-written character. Omar Epps is okay (he two suffers from a badly written role). The relationship between the two characters is one of the most important elements of the plot (or should have been). Yet, this is hardly developed. One moment we see Epps character hugging Ryan and the next we see him call her a bitch and wanting to quit. It would have been a far better movie had this point been improved.

The plot is obviously very predictable and we know how it will end. There are so many plot holes and there is just too much missing from this film. Maybe there was pressure to make this film within the time limit and the director decided to leave out some parts, probably substantial parts. On a positive note, the last boxing scene was well shot.

'Against the Ropes' felt very incomplete and it's a waste for the cast and crew who are otherwise known for their good work. For some reason I tried to enjoy the film...but did not succeed. It isn't the worst movie around and I think it's okay for a one-time watch.

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9 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Meg Ryan and Tony Shaloub are excellent in this fact-inspired movie., 19 October 2004
Author: TxMike from Houston, Tx, USA, Earth

I don't follow boxing, but the lady that Meg Ryan portrays is apparently the female ground-breaker as a boxing manager. The movie is set in Cleveland, on a dare she finds a local black man who appears to have potential, she gets a retired trainer to look at her kid, and together they make a winner. Tony Shaloub is the best here, as the ruthless local boxing manager and promoter who gets his cronies to blacklist her and prevent her boxer from fighting in local fights. So she has to take him to places like Buffalo, NY and cities in Florida to win fight that will eventually get him a title fight. A different role for Meg Ryan, she changes her voice and has to play a "hard" woman. In the DVD extras, the real lady boxing manager is interviewed and it is a nice addition to the story that was inspired by her life, but many things have been changed so it is not really a biographical sketch. The movie is better than its IMDb rating would indicate.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
A drearily superficial sports film that belongs nowhere other than an afternoon slot on daytime television, 17 February 2007
Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK

As a girl Jackie Kallen was attracted to her father's world of boxing but he felt it was unseemly for a girl to be involved. Years later and Jackie is still labouring on the acceptable edges of the boxing business as an executive assistant. A public disagreement with top dog Sam LaRocca sees her taking the contract of a deadbeat boxer for a dollar. When her crack addict boxer gets beat up by thug Luther Shaw she flees but, seeing potential, goes back. She convinces Shaw to sign with her as a boxer and, with all her own possessions on the line, she starts out on her new career – although her beef with LaRocca sees her unable to even get a fight in town.

This film sets out its stall in the first few minutes with an establishing childhood shot that was so simplistic that I felt it should have been coloured in with crayon. And so it continues as we jump to the present day where we join Jackie as she overcomes challenges to become a boxing manager. Based on a true story, this had the potential to be an interesting look at this struggle against a man's world against the odds but instead it is only ever a daytime TV melodrama. The film is entirely superficial throughout and never avoids the chance to have Jackie be a) tough, b) cheerful or, c) tearful. The biggest way this is a problem is in the character of Jackie; at no point did she convince and the result is that, at the end when Jackie pops up to give generic advice that turns the fight, I almost laughed out loud at the sheer corniness of it. I suppose Dutton must shoulder some blame but to be fair nothing in the script suggests that it wanted to be anything other than glossy pap.

And if gloss and superficiality is your aim then I suppose casting Meg Ryan is a good move. Otherwise though I can't see why she was picked because she seems miscast and unable to lend any gravitas or grit to her part. Dutton is solid enough in a clichéd genre role while Epps at least fits his character well and delivers the simple emotions asked of him with conviction. Shalhoub doesn't have much material to work with but he seems to enjoy the tough edge and it does make for an interesting contrast to his current character of Monk! Daly is bland, Washington OK and so it goes on.

Overall then a superficial and glossy daytime television sports film. I suppose viewers meeting it on this level will find it meets their needs but for me it was all very dreary and uninteresting stuff that didn't deserve to be screened anywhere other than a second rate cable channel on a Tuesday afternoon.

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7 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
At Least as Good as "Erin Brokovitch", 20 September 2004

Author: Bob-45 from Savannah, GA

Having intensely disliked the last four or five Meg Ryan movies, I looked upon viewing "Against the Ropes" with some trepidation. After all, the movie had received terrible reviews, both with the critics and with the members of the IMDb. While boxing is my favorite spectator sport, I don't like it enough for "Pay for View" or HBO. So I went into the movie knowing nothing of Jackie Kallen or the accuracy of the film. Maybe that's why I enjoyed "Against the Ropes" so much. I could appreciate the work Ryan, Omar Epps, Charles Dutton, Timothy Daly and, especially, Tony Shaloub were putting on the screen. That Dutton directed particularly impressed me. He handles actors and the camera very well, has a very good eye for screen composition and color. Ryan's Midwestern accent is at least as plausible as Kurt Russell's in "Miracle," and "Against the Ropes" is a more entertaining movie. However, the best acting plaudits go to Tony Shaloub as the weaselly fight promoter. Those only familiar with Shaloub's work on "Monk" or "Wings" are going to see a completely different side of him. Shaloub is menacing without the use of violence; that's not as easy to do as some people might think. The ensemble acting here is even better than "Erin Brockovitch," another sanitized story, so I fail to see why that movie was praised and this one panned. Despite the Hollywood touches, this movie is less predictable than either "Brockovitch" or "Twelve Monkeys," which both received much better reviews.

"Against the Ropes" motivated me enough to read Jackie Kallen's biography.She's a hottie like Ryan, no surprise since that was necessary to get any attention at all in a "man's sport". she's also 57 (so much for the childhood scene, dated "1972" in the beginning) and was a successful fight analyst before she became a manager (so much for the secretary bit. She's also Jewish, three of her gentile champions paraded around the ring with trunks emblazoned with the star of David. Now THAT'S the story I would have liked to have seen. Nonetheless, as presented, "Against the Ropes" is worth at least a "7".

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