REAL STEEL

 

My official UK DVD of Real Steel (© Shawn Levy/21 Laps Entertainment/Montford Murphy Productions/Dreamworks Pictures/Dreamworks Studios/Touchstone Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 29 September 2023, I watched the American sci fi movie Real Steel, which was based upon a 1956 short story entitled 'Steel', written by American sci fi/fantasy author and screenwriter Richard Matheson. Other writings by him that have been turned into major movies include the novels I Am Legend and What Dreams May Come plus several others, as well as the short story 'Duel' (featuring that infamously maniacal, psychotic but never seen on screen lorry driver). So I was hoping for a thrilling watch, and I wasn't disappointed.

Directed by Shawn Levy, including Steven Spielberg (from Dreamworks) and Robert Zemeckis (from Disney) as executive producers, and released in 2011 by Dreamworks Studios and Touchstone Pictures, Real Steel is set in what was then the near future (2020) when boxing matches no longer feature human pugilists but giant robots instead, programmed and remotely-controlled by their human owners.

Hugh Jackman plays former boxer (of the human kind) Charlie Kenton who is now a driven bot owner, but is down on his luck after his latest bot is totally thrashed and trashed in a rigged fight with a colossal steer. In addition, he finds himself attending a custody hearing for his 11-year-old son Max (Dakota Goyo) whom he has never met, after Max's mother, a former girlfriend of Charlie, dies unexpectedly.

Her sister Debra (Hope Davis) wants legal custody of Max, and Charlie does a shady deal with Debra's husband Marvin (James Rebhorn) behind her back to receive a sizeable payment if he allows them to adopt Max, but if he also looks after Max for 3 months while Debra and Marvin go on an extended summer holiday.

The money that Charlie duly receives enables him to buy a very superior bot, but once again his luck fails him and the bot is soon destroyed in a boxing match. However, Max, who has become increasingly interested in bot boxing from being with Charlie, uncovers at a junkyard an abandoned, dilapidated sparring bot of an early, long since surpassed grade, whose chest-plate name is Atom, and after restoring it he persuades Charlie to help him train Atom to box.

There is also a romantic subplot, featuring Charlie and Bailey Tallet (Evangeline Lilly), the feisty, all-grown-up daughter of Charlie's former boxing coach, and who now owns her late father's boxing gym. Bailey acts to a degree as a surrogate mother to Max while he is living with Charlie, and she also assists them, albeit sometimes reluctantly on account of Charlie's gung-ho approach, in the development of Atom.

The rest of the film follows the familiar themes of estranged father and son bonding via a common interest, and an underdog competitor beating all of the odds to reach the pinnacle – in this instance, Atom is pitted against the world's undefeated bot boxer, the mighty Zeus, in the resplendent Real Steel stadium. But can underdog Atom pull off the surprise win of all wins against this god-like entity that has been created by multi-millionaire genius robot inventor/designer Tak Mashido (Karl Yune) and programmed by him with the pugilistic knowledge of every modern-day boxing bot in existence?

Or might Zeus be taken aback by a much less powerful, far more primitive boxing bot, yet one that had been created back in the distant days when such bots were much more human both in form and in their style of boxing? Moreover, Atom has even been trained to box by a human boxer (Charlie), and therefore is far more unpredictable in tactics than modern boxing bots. Think Rocky with robots, plus a transfusion of Transformers, and you'll have a fair idea of what to expect, more or less…

As might be expected from such a film and storyline, Real Steel is packed with superb bot-engendering effects, for which the robots were created in real physical form (and controlled by puppeteers) as well as via CGI (featuring motion-capture using professional boxers supervised by boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard). Indeed, this movie received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects (but lost to Hugo).

Having said that, Real Steel took a while to fully engage my interest, because beneath the bot facade it is really a sporting movie, and I am no sports fan. Even so, by about the halfway mark of its 2-hour run time I'd settled in, and became ever more drawn into the increasingly gripping storyline as it sped on towards its climactic David vs Goliath robo-gladiatorial confrontation between Atom and Zeus, augmented throughout by the excellent, empathic performances of Jackman and Goyo.

In short, Real Steel proved to be an unexpectedly entertaining movie for me, and is certainly well worth watching by everyone, but especially by sports fans, and video gamers too.

Additionally, a TV series is reportedly under development for Disney+, and a sequel movie starring Jackman again, as well as Ryan Reynolds conceivably, is also being considered – the latter in particular would be a delight, I'm sure, in view of the firm bond of comedy chemistry between these two actors as seen in the wonderful Deadpool movies (click here and here for my Deadpool reviews).

Meanwhile, if you'd like to view some belligerent boxing of the steel-sculpted variety, be sure to click here to watch an official Real Steel trailer on YouTube.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

BUSTED UP (aka KILLING TOWN)

 

Front cover and spine of my official ex-rental big box Medusa VHS videocassette of Busted Up (aka Killing Town) (© Conrad E. Palmisano/Rose & Ruby/Medusa Home Videos – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Some movie DVDs and videos have been watched by me almost as soon as I've bought them, whereas various others have lingered unwatched for longer – sometimes much longer. In the case of the movie under review here today, I've owned it in ex-rental big box video format for over 30 years without ever having viewed it – until recently, that is, when I finally got around to doing so. And the title of this long-neglected movie? Busted Up (also released retitled as Killing Town).

Directed by Conrad E. Palmisano, co-produced and written by Damian Lee (who loosely based it upon his own real-life experiences as a bare knuckle boxer in Peru before becoming involved in film-making), and released in 1986 by Rose & Ruby, Busted Up has as its central character one Earl Bird (played by Paul Coufos). Earl is a former jailbird but now a totally reformed and rehabilitated local hero, who not only owns with his best buddy Angie (Stan Shaw) a much-loved gym in the heart of their downtown backstreet neighbourhood (in an unnamed American urban location) but also is a very skilled boxer, of both the gloved and the bare knuckle variety.

Furthermore, Earl is a single parent to his young daughter Sara after girlfriend Simone (Irene Cara) walked out on them, seeking fame and fortune as a singer in the bright lights. However, that didn't work out, so now she is back, singing in sleazy bars instead, and intent upon reclaiming Sara. But this is far from being Earl's only problem needing to be dealt with by him.

Local mobster Irving Drayton (Tony Rosato) has been hired by some seriously unscrupulous real-estate wheeler-dealers to purchase all the properties in Earl's neighbourhood, so that they can be flattened and a shiny new complex built in their stead, and to do whatever it takes to rid these properties of their tenants and owners if they won't sell and move out quickly and quietly.

But after Earl and Angie refuse to sell the gym, and made swiftly aware of Earl's fighting prowess when he readily beats up all of his heavies into abject submission, Drayton offers Earl a serious challenge instead.

One of Earl's friends had reluctantly sold to Drayton the greengrocer store that he and his father before him had owned and worked in all their lives. So the deal proposed is that Earl fights a champion hand-picked by Drayton. If Earl loses, Drayton keeps the greengrocer store and also takes the gym, but if Earl wins he keeps the gym and also takes back his friend's store. There is one other condition, however – in addition to the businesses, Earl and Drayton must each put up a cash prize of $25,000.

That is not a problem for Drayton, because this is the sum that the wheeler-dealers have paid him in advance for his services. But as Earl and Angie do not have that kind of money going spare, it means that Earl will have to raise it by entering bare knuckle bouts in the hopes of winning it. But in so doing, he risks injuring himself before the bout with Drayton's champion (something that Drayton is counting upon happening).

And speaking of his champion: Drayton calls upon the services of a feral man-mountain just released from jail on parole, a certain Tony Tenera (Gord Judges), who just so happens to nurture a blind, unfettered hatred for Earl following a ferocious physical confrontation when they were in jail together. So this will be a grudge match in every sense.

After reconciling with Simone, and finally accumulating the necessary $25,000 without doing damage to himself, Earl is all set for the big fight with Tenera. Then, that same day, he is tricked into a back-alley confrontation with Drayton's entire gang of thugs who beat him up so badly with iron bars that it seems unlikely he will be in a fit state even to tackle Tenera that evening, let alone emerge triumphant. Thanks to Angie's skills in recuperative treatment, however, Earl enters the ring and prepares to do battle, but will his still-weakened state let him down, or will he rise like a resurrected Rocky phoenix and demolish Tenera, saving the day for himself, for the gym, and for all his friends in the neighbourhood? Take a wild guess!

Busted Up is a somewhat formulaic but nonetheless very watchable underdog-comes-good sport-themed action movie, with a very likeable character in Earl whom you readily root for throughout the film, plus an unequivocally (and literally!) no-punches-pulled performance from Coufos playing him. Although Cara is top-billed in the movie's opening credits (and second-billed in the closing ones, oddly), as Simone she plays little more than a supporting character (though she does get to sing some songs), with Coufos's Earl, Shaw's Angie, Rosato's Drayton, and Frank Pellegrino's Nicky (providing some much-needed comedy relief among all the blood and beatings as a longstanding yet less than trustworthy friend of Earl and Angie) sharing the principal acting honours.

So, was Busted Up worth its 30-year wait to be watched by me? Bearing in mind that it's from a film genre – sport – that I rarely watch (martial arts excepted), and that I only bought it on the strength of its two lead stars, Coufos and Cara, I think so, yes. It engaged my attention, made me care about the good guys, and wish bad things upon the bad guys – what more can you ask for from an action movie?

If you'd like to view an official Busted Up trailer on YouTube, be sure to click here. Moreover, at the time of my posting this review of it on Shuker In MovieLand, you can watch this entire film free of charge on YouTube by clicking here – so be sure to take the opportunity to do so while you can.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.