Challengers (2024) Film Review

Tashi, a tennis player turned coach, has transformed her husband from a mediocre player into a world-famous grand slam champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she makes him play a challenger event — close to the lowest level of tournament on the pro tour. Tensions soon run high when he finds himself standing across the net from the once-promising, now burnt-out Patrick, his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend.

Challengers is directed by Luca Guadagnino director of A Bigger Splash (2015), Call Me By Your Name (2017), Suspiria (2018), Bones and All (2022) and a few others.

One thing that I truly love in film is when you see a film you knew was going to be really good and it ends up surpassing your expectations by a lot. That’s the case with Challengers. Luca Guadagnino takes the sport of tennis and what seems like a straightforward premise and flips it on it’s head. Thrilling, captivating and erotic are just some of the words to describe the film.

Starting with performances since Challengers is a very performance heavy as well as a character heavy film. Zendaya gives a career best performance, her performance as Tashi Duncan is truly exciting to watch and truly captures the film’s atmosphere. Just by looking into the eyes of Tashi the viewer is able to get a good idea of her, Zendaya truly masters the subtle and careful character moments with body language and some speech patterns that are truly investing. Her performance is one of the best so far this year and quite honestly one of the most fun performances of the year as well.

Similarly Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist are both brilliant as well, it’s some of the best pairing I’ve seen in a film so far this year. Each and every time the two share a screen together they have this natural connection that makes the scene in question all the more interesting. The dialogue the two share to each other is raw and really brings the viewer into the film’s world. What’s great is we get a ton of information about the two Art Donaldson (played by Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (played by Josh O’Connor) have a lot of their information told through some flashbacks which the film does a excellent job of jumping back and forth. It also helps build the film’s world as well.

Together all three have this chemistry that is just oozing with style and powerful development that is shown throughout the film, the more we learn about each of the three the more you get put into the film. It’s truly remarkable how natural and easily the script by Justin Kuritzkes brings in the viewer to a wild ride.

One thing that is often brought up in a ton of reviews is the score, which let me tell you right now it’s for a good reason. I was not expecting the score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to take this electronic direction that it did. Tennis is the last sport you would think of to associate with electronic music and yet it fits perfectly, especially combined with the cinematography and many camera angles during the tennis matches it creates some quite electrifying and stylized moments that really make the film standout.

I do not want to say much else because Challengers is definitely a film you have to experience for yourself, it’s a truly brilliant film that I can’t recommend enough!

Challengers is available in theaters.

10/10 A+

The Beautiful Game (2024) Film Review

Mal is the manager of England’s homeless football team, taking his players to Rome with the hope of being crowned champions of the Homeless World Cup. He brings with them a talented striker, Vinny, who could give them a real chance at winning.

The Beautiful Game is directed by Thea Sharrock who directed Me Before You (2016), The One and Only Ivan (2020) and Wicked Little Letters (2023).

Not a whole lot going on here, it’s a very typical underdog sports movie. The movie itself is fiction but it is about the real Homeless World Cup Tournament which is a bit interesting. When you read about the Homeless World Cup it’s honestly very touching, it brings people together to celebrate a sport and advocates for the end of homelessness through the sport of football (or soccer for Americans).

It’s unfortunate that The Beautiful Game goes for a cliched underdog type of direction rather than a more authentic one. The movie is well intentioned and there are some great moments particularly Bill Nighty who gives a very solid performance, while his character Mal isn’t exactly a very investing character (Mal’s backstory is incredibly basic) the performance is enough to make him one of the movie’s best parts.

The biggest problem here as I hinted at before is how it’s written, rather than really explaining what the Homeless World Cup is or talking about different parts of it. The viewer is stuck with a very typical underdog narrative which lead into a bucket full of sports drama cliches, it essentially trades in what could have been authenticity for a much safer and convenient path for the movie to go on.

The movie means well and has a nice message, but that kind of defeats the purpose when you really don’t explore the topic of your movie all that well.

The Beautiful Game is available on Netflix.

4/10 D+

The Underdoggs (2024) Film Review

Jaycen Jennings, a former NFL superstar, agrees to coach a youth football team to avoid serving time in prison.

The Underdoggs is directed by Charles Stone III director of Drumline (2002), Lila & Eve (2015), Step Sisters (2017), Uncle Drew (2018) and a few others.

I’m a bit surprised, The Underdoggs isn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be. There is genuine heart put into this that does get lost throughout the movie due to issues I’ll get into in a moment. The concept of the movie comes from The Snoop Youth Football League which was founded by Snoop Dogg it still continues to this day, C.J. Stroud who is the quarterback for the Houston Texans played in The Snoop Youth Football League which is really neat.

Snoop Dogg is quite great here, a lot of his jokes do end up being just saying “mother fucker” over and over again, but he gives a genuinely solid performance and there were moments that got a few laughs out of me. Mike Epps is also not too bad here he gives some decent laughs but unfortunately doesn’t have a whole lot to work with as the movie goes on.

The main flaw here is while the movie does have heart, it’s basically if you took any of those sports movies like Mighty Ducks and made the kids say piss and fuck over and over again, it’s something we have seen so many times before only with extra cursing. Which is kind of the movie’s only joke cursing a bunch of times and hope the viewer laughs. Which ultimately hurts the heartfelt moments and sort of puts into this weird mix of this sports movie that wants to have this heartfelt message and be good for kids but also wants to curse as much as possible.

I will admit some of the back and forth between the adults and kids were genuinely hilarious and is arguably where the movie shined the most, as I said before The Underdoggs is not as bad as I was expecting but that doesn’t mean it’s a good movie. It’s very heavily flawed and repeats a lot of the same beats a lot of sports movies do (minus the swearing) but I do think this isn’t the worst way to spend 96 minutes. There’s some fun to be had here and I do think there is an audience for this one.

The Underdoggs is available on Amazon Prime Video.

4/10 D+

The Iron Claw (2023) Film Review.

The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who make history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Through tragedy and triumph, under the shadow of their domineering father and coach, the brothers seek larger-than-life immortality on the biggest stage in sports

The Iron Claw is directed by Sean Durkin director of The Nest (2020) and Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011). The film is based on the life of wrestler Kevin Von Erich and the Von Erich family.

I’ve said this before but I’m not a wrestling fan, but reading about the story of Kevin and his family is incredibly sad stuff. Between 1984 and 1993 3 of the five brothers Mike, Chris and Kerry died by suicide and another of the five David died of acute enteritis although this is heavily debated. There was another brother Jack Jr. who died in 1959 by drowning after an electrical shock long before the other brothers deaths. I bring Jack Jr. up because when people talk about the Von Erich deaths they are mostly talking about Mike, Chris, Kerry and David so I figured it’s worth pointing out.

The film itself mentions Jack Jr. In one scene which I thought was sweet and is admittedly one of the film’s very emotional moments. The film doesn’t include one of the brothers Chris, the reason given by Durkin is he was worried the film would be way too depressing and would never get made. To make up for Chris’s absence he incorporates his death with Mike who in real life Chris looked up to and ended his life because of Mike’s death effecting him so much. Some people might not like Chris’s absence and that’s completely understandable, I do think the film makes up for it with large amount of emotion capturing the absolute tragedy of this story.

The performances are all incredibly top notch nobody here gives a bad performance, Zac Efron plays Kevin Von Erich and gives one of the most touching performances I’ve seen from a film this year. It’s a devastating performance that captures the incredibly sad story of Kevin Von Erich, there’s so many moments here where you can absolutely feel the pain in his voice and body language. There’s another scene where Kevin Von Erich is having such a good time being married and dancing with his wife Pam Adikisson (played by Lily James) and his brothers Kerry (played by Jeremy Allen White), Mike (played by Stanley Simons and David (played by Harris Dickinson) this scene in particular is the finale of the happy moments of the film. And the way Zac Efron is able to capture both these times where Kevin is living a much happier life and when he’s surrounded by tragedy which he even goes as far as to consider that the “Von Erich curse” is real (which you really can’t blame him for that) is absolutely incredible and truly shows Efron’s talent as an actor.

Jeremy Allen White, Harrison Dickinson, Stanley Simons, Holt McCallany and Lily James are all fantastic here. White, Dickson and Simons do a phenomenal job of capturing the pain and tragedy of the brothers. They all bounce of each other well making this incredibly more sad to watch as the bond all the brothers have here is incredibly grounded. Holt McCallany plays Fritz Von Erich which again much like everyone else here he does such a fantastic job, although the film is much more focused on the brothers and less on the abuse Fritz caused on the brothers. It’s still very much implied through the brother’s facial expressions of clearly not wanting to do something but they want to make their father proud so they do it. Although Lily James isn’t a huge focus, she is still quite incredibly here and naturally fits incredibly well with the cast.

The way the story is told here combined with the acting is what really makes this film, it’s told in such a focused and emotional way that quickly grabs the viewer’s heart. Right from the beginning there’s little subtle hints as to what’s going to happen, even if you haven’t heard the story of the Von Erichs you still have this feeling something is going to really hit you like a truck and that’s absolutely the case. Durkin does such as great job of making this as grounded as possible, which is important since this is based off of a true story. With a sad story like this you want to tell it in the most grounded way possibly and luckily that’s the case here.

The wrestling scenes are quite powerful and whether this was intentional or not in some ways really fit together with the tragedy of the story. The wrestling scenes have this extra gut punch where you can really feel and hear the impact, in a lot of other wrestling movies you can tell they are just action scenes. But here you really feel the brutality of it all it’s so well directed and the sound is incredibly sharp.

The final moments of the film is what absolutely got me to cry, I’m not going to spoil what’s said because it’s something you must hear for yourself to get the full impact. But the moments really sum up this film and really wrap up the film in such a beautiful and touching way. The ending is on the hopeful side with the film mentioning Kevin Von Erich having grandchildren and they constantly meet up, it’s truly touching and moments like this that really bring the viewer to tears.

The Iron Claw is available in theaters.

10/10 A+

Nyad is yet another oscar bait biopic.

Sixty-four-year-old marathon swimmer Diana Nyad attempts to become the first person ever to swim from Cuba to Florida.

Nyad is directed by documentary filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhely and Jimmy Chin who directed Free Solo (2018), The Rescue (2021) and a few others. Nyad is a biopic about Diana Nyad a swimmer who swam around Manhattan in record time in 1975 and then in 1979 she swam from North Bimini, The Bahamas to Juno Beach, Florida. Finally in 2013 she swam from Havana Cuba to Key West, Florida.

Nyad has the right ingredients to be a very strong movie but unfortunately this is yet another biopic that falls into the Oscar bait category. Oscar bait is a term I do think gets overused especially during the last few years where 80% of the time people call a movie Oscar bait simply because they don’t like it. But the term absolutely applies here, the movie does have it’s positives such as Jodie Foster’s performance which has a lot of heart and once again shows that Jodie Foster can really work with a script even if it’s very lacking. Annette Bening’s performance is a very shocking mixed bag, there is a lot of overacting which to be completely fair Bening does her best with the script she’s given but there is also moments where she really shines which is mainly the scenes with Foster and Bening sharing the screen together these moments are genuinely powerful and really stick to the viewer throughout the movie.

The writing is the main issue here, as I said before Bening and Foster do their best with the script that does lead to some good results. But a lot of the time you would think you are watching a soap opera and not a very good one, the way the movie jumps from scene to scene is quite baffling and has a huge “made for tv” type of feel that unfortunately really bogs down the movie. The other part of the problem is Nyad isn’t much different than your traditional sports biopic, it has very similar beats that at this point many people can quickly recognize.

Which is honestly quite a shame because Diana Nyad’s story is very interesting and her story can be absolutely told well, but unfortunately that’s not the case here with this movie. It’s also quite odd that Vasarhely and Chin are in the director’s chair, while I do appreciate them trying something out of their comfort zone but Nyad could have easily been a documentary and would have gotten the same message across.

Nyad is available on Netflix.

5/10 C

Shooting Stars is a decent telling of LeBron James’s high school sports career.

The inspiring origin story of a basketball superhero reveals how LeBron James and his childhood friends became the No. 1 high school team in the country, launching James’ breathtaking career as a four-time NBA Champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist and the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.

Shooting Stars biopic sports movie based on LeBron James’s 2009 memoir of the same name, the film focuses on the high school sports career of LeBron James.

There is not a whole lot to comment on here and that’s not necessarily a bad thing in this case, LeBron James’s story is told actually pretty well here. There’s some very decent acting and the chemistry of the cast really makes the movie shine through quite well, Mookie Cook who plays LeBron James is definitely the standout by far as he does give a genuinely touching performance.

As for the rest of the movie it’s pretty okay, Shooting Stars is admittedly barely different than a lot of other sports biopics. But at the very least this one has a lot of heart in it, which you can tell from the writing. The dialogue isn’t anything groundbreaking or anything, but it is honest and has heart in it. There’s definitely a handful of moments that are a bit too dramatized and could potentially take the viewer out of the movie. However with what director Chris Robinson put together this is certainly not a bad attempt at telling LeBron James’s story from when he was in high school.

Shooting Stars is available on Peacock.

6/10 C+

Air a fun and interesting look at how the Air Jordans came to be.

Sonny Vaccaro and Nike pursue basketball rookie Michael Jordan, creating a partnership that revolutionizes the world of sports and contemporary culture.

I can always admire a film and it’s team when they take a story, real life event or concept that sounds very uninteresting and make it incredibly fun and interesting…that’s the case here with Air.

Air is a film based on the true events about the origin of the Air Jordan a very popular basketball shoeline, which a Nike employee tries to strike a deal with Michael Jordan. The story itself is very generic business stuff, something that turning into a movie while trying to make it interesting and genuinely fun would be a very hard task. Luckily Ben Affleck plus the cast and crew manage to take the story and do something quite great with it.

For starters the casting is one of the film’s highlights, everyone here does a fantastic job Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Chris Tucker, Chris Messina and Viola Davis are definitely the standouts here, Viola Davis continues to show why she’s one of the best actresses working today. Her performance as Deloris Jordan (Michael Jordan’s mother) is truly fascinating and quite raw as well. She always brings this powerhouse touch to her performances and that is definitely shown here. Chris Tucker and Chris Messina are both genuinely hilarious in their respective roles, finally there’s Matt Damon and Ben Affleck who really work incredibly well together. The two really capture the whole business type of feel in their performances that makes the movie all the more grounded.

Ben Affleck’s direction is another main standout, there’s a lot here that could have easily been just admittedly some very well done scenes with not a whole lot to them, however Affleck includes humor and turns people who are when you really boil down to it very generic businessmen that audiences could write off very easily into people who actually become quite interesting as the film goes on. Alex Convert’s script really helps the film stand as it does have some dramatic moments that move the film along at a nice pace and the script also manages to avoid a lot of common biopic tropes.

Overall Air is definitely an interesting film that took a very uninteresting subject and made it into something fun and investing!

Air is available on all VOD platforms.

8/10 B+

White Men Can’t Jump (2023) is a pointless remake

Two ballers, opposites who are seemingly miles apart, find they might have more in common than they imagined possible.

Remember how earlier this month I talked about Cube (2021) being a very pointless remake that is barely different from the original? Well here’s another remake that follows from some of the exact same problems (only worse) White Men Can’t Jump is a remake of the 1992 film of the same name. Even if I’m not that huge on the original I still think it’s a solid movie that had a lot of great chemistry that was genuinely funny, Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson had fantastic chemistry that really felt natural so it would be very hard to try and capture that sort of chemistry again.

White Men Can’t Jump (2023) suffers from a lot of issues and a lot of them have to do with the script and the very lacking chemistry between Jack Harlow and Sinqua Walls, Harlow and Walls are definitely at least trying to make the bond between the two work. But unfortunately it doesn’t quite work outside of a few moments that are admittedly some of the best parts about the movie.

Their chemistry just doesn’t capture the same sort of magic that Snipes and Harrelson had in the original, as I said earlier the chemistry in the original felt natural while with this one is a lot more manufactured and really does not come together at all. As far as writing goes while it’s fine to try and not be an exact copy of the original, the changes in the script they went with are very questionable.

Having pop culture references such as Tiktok really doesn’t fit here at all and once again comes off as wanting someone who’s watching to point their finger and say “they said Tiktok” the script also wraps up like a Disney channel original movie, such as talking about very half baked morals that if you took them out wouldn’t change a thing.

Lastly there’s the trash talk which the original did have, but at least the original’s trash talk was executed in a somewhat raw way so the viewer could feel the impact. But here while the lines may seem harsh the viewer doesn’t feel anything due to it being executed so poorly, the power, confidence and intimidation is just not there at all to make these lines work at all.

Overall White Men Can’t Jump (2023) is yet another example of a remake that did not need to be made, the main question when the credits rolled in my head was “why was this made?” I know it’s a cliched question to ask with a lot of bad remakes, but I think it fits appropriately here considering that this is absolutely a remake that nobody asked for.

White Men Can’t Jump is available on Hulu.

2/10 F

Sweetwater isn’t a slamdunk

Nathaniel “Sweetwater” Clifton, star attraction of the Harlem Globetrotters, changes the game of basketball when he becomes the first African American player to sign a contract with the NBA in the fall of 1950.

The last person I expected to direct a movie about Nat Coffin the first African American to sign a contract with the NBA was Martin Guigui the director who did the 9/11 movie with Charlie Sheen and Whoopi Goldberg. Sweetwater might actually be the best movie in his career but given the quality of this movie that’s not saying a whole lot.

Sweetwater has good intentions and really tries to the tell the story of Nat Coffin the best it can, the main problem here is Martin Guigui’s script and direction, there’s so many moments where you can tell the cast are trying to bring genuine emotion to their performances. But unfortunately that’s just not happening due to a lot of over acting or just flat out awful moments that completely take the viewer out of the movie.

Sweetwater suffers from a lot of typical biopic story beats and if you are familiar with the sports film genre you aren’t going to get anything new here either, the third act lacks a lot of strength as well as being very underwhelming. It doesn’t really strike as a final game, if you took the clip of the game and showed it to someone without context I can assure you that nobody would guess it’s the final game.

Sweetwater is available on all VOD platforms.

3/10 D-

Creed III is a film filled with tension.

Still dominating the boxing world, Adonis Creed is thriving in his career and family life. When Damian, a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy resurfaces after serving time in prison, he’s eager to prove that he deserves his shot in the ring. The face-off between former friends is more than just a fight. To settle the score, Adonis must put his future on the line to battle Damian — a fighter who has nothing to lose.

Creed III is the third film in the Creed series and ninth overall film in the Rocky series..and it’s one of the absolute best of the franchise!

Creed III has a very simple setup and does take a bit to get off the ground (not in a bad way) but it makes up for that with atmosphere that is very tense and gets the viewer hyped for the eventual fight scenes. The performances are all quite fantastic especially Michael B. Jordan who once again kills it with his performance as Adonis Creed and Jonathan Majors as Damian Anderson who is quite a fantastic villain as well as being very intimidating as well.

The tension that builds between Creed and Anderson is very thrilling and striking, it lasts throughout the film and eventually comes all together once the match begins. The match itself is thrilling and filled to the brim with this powerhouse strength that brings the viewer into the action, Michael B. Jordan wasn’t kidding when he said a lot of the action scenes were anime inspired. Because that is absolutely shown here (if you are a Dragon Ball fan such as myself there’s one in particular that you will instantly see), Michael B. Jordan is in the director’s chair this time around and his direction is absolutely phenomenal. Between the filming of the action scenes, the tense dialogue and the character’s development Jordan really does a phenomenal job of bringing the viewer into the film.

Creed III also combines what made the first two Creed films so incredible and turns it up into eleven, it magnifies the action and atmosphere to the point where they are both gigantic and hit every high note, the film itself wraps up wonderfully and has such an exciting ending as well!

Creed III is available on all VOD platforms.

9/10 A