Wonderful Movie

The Worst Film Ever

Excellent adaptation.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

From THE GODS OF WAR by Springs Toledo (speaking of the first fight- The Brawl In Montreal- between Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard): "Fifteen rounds had unveiled a god of war." To SOME; to those of us who followed The Game, Duran was VERY well known. (In fact, when I got in line to see The Brawl In Montreal on closed circuit television, I found, much to my amazement, that I was the ONLY person in line who thought Duran would win.) Duran as Lightweight Champion fought with a Feral Ferocity few fighters (if any) ever matched. Going into the fight with Leonard, Duran had only a single loss on his record: a disputed ten-round decision loss to Esteban Dejesus, who would be stopped by Duran in two subsequent fights. Leonard, the Olympic Gold Medalist, had never lost a professional fight. The result was fireworks of the highest Fistic order. HANDS OF STONE is at its most effective, however, during its QUIETER, more Dramatic moments, when we get glimpses into the Soul of this Fighter. From HANDS OF STONE by Christian Giudice: "Warmth and generosity were as much a part of him as the myopic brutality he employed in the ring." That dichotomy comes across clearly in HANDS OF STONE, which helps make it much more than "just another boxing movie." There are other fighters whose stories would also make for compelling movies: Jersey Joe Walcott (the Heavyweight Champion); Rocky Marciano (who has YET to be done justice on the Screen); Archie Moore (the Elder Statesman of The Sweet Science); Jerry Quarry ("Perpendicular is better than parallel..."); Alexis Arguello (suicide, my a--); Tony Ayala (tragedy on top of tragedy); George Chuvalo (one of the most tragic of ALL), etc. Looking forward to the next Round.

This film tells the story of a young man in Panama, who grows up to be a successful boxing champion. This film chronicles his rise and fall in the boxing world, and the story of the people around him who makes everything possible.Boxing is a sport that I don't really understand, so perhaps that's the reason that I can't really get into the story. I can see how history and politics makes Duran angry, and he channels that into boxing. His rise to fame is a good story, and I like the parts where the coach said about strategies. However, the rest of the story is not so well told. I still can't understand why he did what he did at the $8 million dollar match. A reminder, make sure you watch it with subtitles on, unless you soak good Spanish, as a lot of the dialogue is in Spanish.

First of all, I am a big boxing fan so there was no chance I was going miss this one. Came out in the cinemas and got my tickets to go watch it. Roberto Duran was a member of what people called the "Fantastic four" (Duran, Hearns, Hagler, Leonard). A bunch of unique fighters who met in the late 70's and early 80's and had some of the most entertaining fights in boxing history. Roberto Duran was the smallest of them all and went from lightweight to middleweight to challenge them and gave a tremendous account of himself. The movie is fun to watch whether you like boxing of not. Its shows the tough upbringings of the life of this magnificent champion, how he never goes to school but ends marrying a well educated women, the needs to prove himself in every outing not only for him but also for his country which was undermined by the power of the US. Duran was a great fighter and somehow justice has been done by giving this man a movie that confirms him as one of the true greats in boxing history.

Durans biography is a great story and for the most part is a good movie, but it could of been so much better, one of the greats even...And it all comes down to the directing... The movie is hard to connect with in the first 20 minutes and the voice audio is somewhat drowned out by the background audio, which obviously doesn't help in that regard either... It does slowly start getting better and a lot more engaging... The biggest downfall is the fights unfortunately, which is meant to be the best part of a fight movie, the camera is zoomed in that close you can't really tell whats going on half the time...? Honestly how can anyone think its good to film fight scenes like that is beyond me...