Undefeated

"Undefeated" is a shabby and hackneyed rags to riches story about a poor Latino boxer from Jackson Heights, NY who wins the a welterweight championship and finds the challenges in the ring are small compared to the challenges in his personal life. An unfortunate directorial debut for Leguizamo, this film shows us nothing new, is ill-focused, uneven, and full of cliches and two dimensional characters. As a human drama, "Undefeated" is a mediocre B-flick. As a fight film, it falls on its face and does nothing to give insights into the real, fascinating, and corrupt world of professional boxing. (C)

Leguizamos ego that is. This guy has been handed carte blance by HBO for some reason, to do whatever he wants. He's really bad, his comedy is unfunny and his drama comedic. This movie is the Latino version of about 22 fight pictures all nonsensically quilted together. The scenes and dialogue are about as fresh as bread crumbs. Just all unimaginative cliche, but a few real hotties, I must admit. Watch it for the nudity if you must. Otherwise, NEXT!!!

Immediately after this movie was finished, I wanted to find out how I could get back the hour-and-a-half of my life that I wasted watching this stereotypical, unimaginative, poorly written, poorly directed mess. In addition it boasts one of the worst endings ever in the history of movies. Please don't waste a fraction of your life watching this film. Like me, you will not be able to get that time back.

This movie was OK, but nothing too exciting. In the story, a young boxer moves up from the ameteurer ranks to turn pro. Then, he hooks up with a shady manager and eventually becomes a title holder while losing friends along the way. He hooks up with a girl that they call a give-me girl because she just hangs around rich guys. And we have many stereotypical scenes of the boxer's old friends coming around asking for money and the boxer moves into a huge house.

I have two complaints. One is John Leguizamo is too old to play the boxer. In the beginning, an ameteur boxer would probably be 18. Well, he already looks like he's in his 30's. The second is the abrupt ending. It just sort of stops, with no conclusion or anything. The boxer is just walking to the ring for another match.

FINAL VERDICT: If you like boxing, then you may like it. Otherwise, I wouldn't see it.

I don't know if this movie could have been any worse if it tried. My two roommates and I were totally pumped up to see this film, we set a timer on the TV and all ran into the living room when the timer went off and sat attentively on the couch like dogs about to be fed.

When it was over, we slowly got up and walked out of the room without saying a word to each other. The movie was so bad it left us speechless. This farce of a film was nothing more than a way for John Leguizamo to live out his boxing fantasies. I recommend avoiding it at all costs.