Without the euthanasia, "Uppercut" has superficial similarities to "Million Dollar Baby" in its details. In Bushwick, a young German girl is alone and begs an older former boxer to teach her. He is against it. She drives. He gives in. However, Torsten Ruether's "Uppercut," which he wrote and directed, has way too much going on. It has the impression that "Uppercut" is made up of two separate films—or perhaps two short films—that have been jumbled into one. Due primarily to the presence of Ving Rhames, who does all of the acting heavy lifting, the central event—a late-night conversation or training session between a wannabe boxer and a tired boxing coach—carries some interest. Toni (Luise Großmann), a glamorous boxing manager, gives the boxer she manages a motivational speech ahead of a big fight. In her ferocious demeanor, frosted tips, and jeweled pantsuit, she resembles Lady Macbeth. Toni watches the fight on television while arguing with her husband on the phone about what to do with their sick daughter while the roar of the crowd can be heard above the locker room. The bickering conversation goes on forever, all as Toni paces, throwing glances at the television to see how her fighter (Jordan E. Cooper's) activities. Cut to: eight years earlier.
Toni wanders the streets of Manhattan, a wispy flâneur eating a pizza slice, stopping to watch some hip-hop dancers, sitting on bleachers deep in thought. There is no hint of who she is, where she lives, or what she does for a living. She goes to a boxing gym after hours in search of the owner, an ex-boxer named Elliott Dufford (Rhames), following a tip from a friend. She is told to leave by him. She manages to persuade him to let her stay, and the two of them talk all night. They also do a few training-type activities, but they mostly talk. A flashback to pantsuit Toni, still yelling at her husband about their child's runny nose, ends this long scene. The tension that was supposed to develop between the two timelines never materializes. Mixed in, there are flash-forwards to other spots in the timeline, where Payne demands that a very pregnant Toni represent him. Toni is not paying attention to Payne's fight, which is shown in very confusing sequences. The late-night conversation between Elliott and Toni is clearly the main event. They discuss boxing. She meets Buddy Guy thanks to him. (Eight years later, we learn that Toni's daughter owns Buddy, a stuffed animal.) To demonstrate to him her rhythms, Elliott makes her dance to a Buddy Guy song. Toni swaying around in a trance, feeling the music, doesn’t seem to have much to do with boxing, and yet it’s filmed like it’s a transcendent moment for her. Improbably, she opens up to Elliott about a new guy she’s seeing. Elliott finds it hard to believe that he would want to stay up until one in the morning and listen to a complete stranger who was forty years his junior talk about her boy problems. When compared to "The Fire Inside," which was about Claressa Shields, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, this year, "Uppercut" suffers. Shields’ background was rough, and her father, once an underground boxer, passed on his love of the sport to her, but he was in prison for much of Shields’ childhood. Shields had to overcome her gender in a male-dominated sport, but her sheer determination to compete prevailed. “The Fire Inside” does what “Uppercut” doesn’t do. Shields makes sense as a character. Toni doesn’t.
Toni complains, resists, or gets hurt during the few training exercises Elliott gives her. In "Rocky," Rocky Balboa's eyelid being sliced open during the big fight is compared to a cut on her eyebrow. Even though I wasn't an expert on boxing, I still thought, "No way does this girl have what it takes." Why is Toni interested in boxing? This appears to be quite significant information. She tells Elliott that she wants to work hard because everything in her life has been given to her. This is not a motivation intended to motivate the audience to support her. Are we supposed to ask, "What happened to the hopeful scrappy girl eight years earlier?" when we look at Toni in her pantsuit? and feel the loss? It's not clear. The term "Uppercut" is frustratingly vague.
Learn More Maybe “Uppercut”‘s origin story is the source of its multiple problems. The German writer-director made his feature debut in 2021 with “Leberhaken,” and “Uppercut” is its English-language remake, with Großmann starring in both films. This is where things get tricky. Reuther directed two additional versions of “Uppercut” in 2023, referred to on IMDb as “the still version” and “the sparkling version”. The “still” version comprises Elliott and Toni’s late-night conversation. Toni is depicted in the pantsuit eight years later in the "sparkling version." A monster like Frankenstein is created through all of this making and remaking. The "still" and the "sparkling" are attempted to be combined in "Uppercut," but the disparate pieces—which were problematic enough on their own—do not fit.
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