Cardboard Boxer

Thomas Hayden Church plays Willie, a homeless man with a little missing in the head. Based on the title of the movie, the film was about Willie getting paid by some rich kids to fight other homeless people for their entertainment. The other star on the poster, Terrance Howard plays a man who was able to get himself off the streets and comes back to help those he left behind, trying to seek out these rich kids and stop them from exploiting the homeless.

The richness of the film comes from Church trying to keep his mind straight, and doing this after coming across the diary of a young burn victim writing about the experience. He finds comfort writing letter to her inside the diary.

Overall the film does a great job of making you look differently at the homeless. It get inside the mind of a man living on the streets, and it does not try to figure him out, just make him human.

However, the movie does clean up far too well, and somehow this takes away from completely getting under your skin about the situation.

It's a well driven vehicle for Church, especially with Howard riding shotgun, but it does not have the emotion needed for people to go out and see it.