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.

Generally, I don't go for dramas much, and I really dislike long draw- out dramas. I watched Cardboard Boxer knowing zero about it apart from the title, and got totally sucked into the story. Its a story about a human being, not a "homeless person". It didn't dwell on the plight of the homeless, or try to preach about the class divide.

I thought the movie made outstanding use of its unashamedly simplistic characters and setting to tell a very thoughtful story with a rich vein of truth and humanity at its core. I found much I could empathise with despite never having been anywhere near homeless myself.

But yes, it is no more about "bumfights" than Romeo and Juliet is about hot-rods and Brylcreem. For people wanting to see that sort of thing, give this one a miss and skip straight to WWE.

Whatever its shortcomings may be, this movie tackles some of the darkest places in the soul of man and still manages to bring the viewer through it feeling optimistic and uplifted without having to resort to anything as patronising as a 'happily ever after'.

Cardboard Boxer touches on many facets of human-nature, but at its heart, it's a love story told through the eyes of someone so utterly alone that they have never even known anyone well enough to develop an unrequited crush, let alone fall in love. By rights, it should be the type of utterly depressing movie that makes me switch off after 10 minutes, but it was quite the opposite. That's a pretty neat trick Mr. Lee.

This is the best feel good movie in years. If you have a heart, it will leave you breathless at times, emotionally exhausted, having laughed and cried, and then feeling so good! It is right on with the feelings one has in being homeless, as I too could not get out of my homeless circumstances, though I tried different cities and states, until in Florida, in utter hopelessness and desperation from years of this I begged a police officer in West Palm Beach to arrest me, but instead he took me to his home, became my biggest hero, and got me out of homelessness. But more importantly, buy this movie, don't rent it! It is a rare gem, and the best medicine for anyone who needs to feel good, and a move such as this one will heal the broken heart.

I attempted to watch what I thought would be a meaningless time passer movie before bed.... I ended up watching a real solid attempt at an emotional movie.. I found my self falling deeper into the pain this movie portrayed. From the first 5 minutes to the last 5 minutes I was fully committed to what this movie has to offer. A film like this really shows a person how hard some people have it and what we all take for granted.. The weak and nieve get prayed upon by the "superior" but in the end we are all human and are capable of amazing things... Most viewers will see the title and move right on by thinking it's just another .50 cent cheap thrill, that lately has seemed to over saturate the movie industry. This is not that kind of movie. Enjoy it as I did and come away feeling pretty blessed about how lucky you have it.

Greetings from Lithuania.

"Cardboard Boxer" (2016) kinda reminded me a bit of "Time Out of Mind" (2014) - similar themes and surroundings. "Cardboard Boxer" is not bad at all character study movie (a bit), but "Time" was better in this category, but it wasn't such emotional as "Boxer".

Although no awards will shine for acting in this movie, i liked the performances by Thomas Haden Church, Terrence Howard and Boyd Holbrook as Pinky - he could have stayed on screen longer. Directing was nice as well as script. This is well paced movie - at running time 1 h 25 min it doesn't drag.

Overall, "Cardboard Boxer" is a nice little movie which will unfortunately i'm afraid be overlooked by many. Although it doesn't have anything original or very well made, is not a bad movie overall for seeing it once.