The Great White Hype
When the champ's promoter, Rev. Sultan, decides something new is needed to boost the marketability of the boxing matches, he searches and finds the only man to ever beat the champ. The problem is that he isn't a boxer anymore and he's white. However, once Rev. Sultan convinces him to fight, he goes into heavy training while the confident champ takes it easy and falls out of shape.
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- Cast：
- Samuel L. Jackson , Jeff Goldblum , Peter Berg , Corbin Bernsen , Jon Lovitz , Cheech Marin , John Rhys-Davies
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Reviews
I'll tell you why so serious
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
All I'm going say about "The Great White Hype" is that Peter Berg as "Irish" Terry Conklin is a championship comedic performance. If the sight of him entering the ring with a dancing leprechaun doesn't make you laugh out loud, you really aren't capable of appreciating what a wonderful send up this movie is. Every hilarious scene has an exact parallel to the insanity of professional boxing. No small feat to make satire out of something that is already satire.
The film is about 1:21 and that's probably not helping it either.If this is supposed to be a takeoff on "The Great White Hope" of 1970 fame, forget it.Samuel L. Jackson stars with that amazing wig as a Reverend promoter up to his neck in disgrace.Everyone seems to want a piece of the action. John Lovitz is there as well as a reporter, played by Jeff Goldblum who goes over to Jackson's side for a piece of the action.Jackson has the idea that they can make more money by having a white fighter in the ring against their champ. They get a rock and roll singer who has not lost a bout.The film tries to show that while they all think that racism is not involved, it certainly is. We also have another black challenger who is constantly looking to challenge the champ and when he belts him in the end, Jackson immediately seizes this as an opportunity to promote their slugging to a future fight.The whole thing is rather silly at best.
Reading through the reviews on here, I can only assume that the humour in this film was wasted on a lot of people. Boxing is one of the few sports that translates well into the movies, with there being a decent number of great films based around the sport. This is slightly different to most however, as it takes a very humorous, cynical approach. There are so many memorable scenes and lines in the movie, right from the opening scene it's spot-on and I really can't work out where this criticism of the direction stems from! The fight scenes are over quickly and are nothing like the real thing - obviously - it's a comedy, not a documentary (sigh).Like I said, I can only assume that the biting satire has been wasted on some viewers who were clearly expecting something different from the film. Each to their own, the film seems to have missed it's audience, but a 5 or 6 out of ten it certainly isn't! For me, it's definitely one of the better comedies out there. It's sharp, funny and well worth watching. 8 out of 10.
I used to be a boxing fan, until Don King and Tyson killed whatever credibility the sport had left, but I really enjoyed this movie. The whole beginning of the film with Wayans and Jackson going back and forth and the idea for the big PPV draw, seemed straight out of an actual King and Tyson meeting. The plot is pretty straight forward and most of the "jokes" miss, but it is a SATIRE not a comedy, so that is forgivable.Damon Wayans, Samuel Jackson, Cheech Marin, Peter Berg, and John Rynes-Davises, all give notable performances playing their characters well. The rest of the cast does a decent job of not taking the film too seriously with the notable exception being Jeff Goldblum, who tries so HARD not to make you laugh at him, that eventually you give up. It's like he was in his own film, trying to be so serious, but he is still able to help the film, but in a darker way than the rest.I will be the first to admit that most of the "jokes" that seem to pepper the satire seem to have been thrown in to generate a wider audience and alienate the ones that actually want to watch the movie. It plays more like a documentary on "How to Market a Fight," then an actual movie, but I like the amount of small details that went into making the film. It is too bad no one figured out "How to Market a Successful Film with the Guy from 'Pulp Fiction'" because maybe more people would had seen it. Overall it is still a must-see for those who like boxing or those who used to.
