Undisputed's raging bulls
Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames step up in prison boxing picture
REVIEW
UNDISPUTED
Starring Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames
Directed by Walter Hill
Now showing
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Despite the noises made by Spike Lee, the attempted resurgence of Shaft and Halle Berry’s Oscar speech (never mind how embarrassing it was), the modern face of Hollywood remains decidedly white.
Released with little marketing – or even a press screening, for that matter – Undisputed quietly slithered into theatres last weekend. Still, it’s difficult to recommend a film simply on the premise that its lead actors are black, and thankfully Undisputed pleasantly surprises in the way it toys with what first appears to be a conventional structure. While the boxing film is only an occasional diversion at the multiplex (most recently shot to hell by the likes of Play It To The Bone and The Great White Hype), Undisputed racks up instant bonus points by forcing an uneasy distinction between protagonist and antagonist.
Both Monroe Hutchens (Wesley Snipes) and George 'Iceman' Chambers (Ving Rhames) arrive at Sweetwater Prison as convicted criminals. Snipes plays Hutchens as a man who managed to hold it all inside, "except that once" when he murdered an ex-girlfriend’s newest conquest. Chambers, on the other hand, lost his title as the World Heavyweight Champion following an accusation of rape from a Las Vegas showgirl. For the last 10 years, the prison’s biennial boxing tournaments have belonged solely to Hutchens, but the arrival of Chambers makes the wardens, fellow convicts and aging gangster Mendy Ripstein (a gruff and hilarious Peter Falk) anxious for their own "match of the century."
Director Walter Hill doesn’t spend any more time with story or character development than he needs to – lest we forget, Undisputed is a summer action blockbuster. Tightly composed, we’re told all we need to know through swift flashbacks (shot on grainy black-and-white video), and incessant onscreen text prompts (e.g., "Mingo Pace. Carjacking. Murder. Convicted 1996" – it’s corny, but it works). Sent off to solitary confinement, Hutchens builds a complex Japanese castle with toothpicks, while Chambers punches anyone who steps too close to him. Modelled on the boxing films of the 1940s, Undisputed knows – regardless of the depth of its characters – it’s all about the title fight.
Hill’s primary mistake with this film is in separating his audience from the boxing sequences by spending most of his time outside of the prison’s hastily assembled fight cage, leaving the audience’s view constantly obscured by thick steel bars and coils of barbed wire. Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, a heavyweight that hangs over all boxing films, made a concentrated effort to keep the camera within the ring at all times, each fight photographed in an altogether different style. Undisputed, while undeniably an impressive exhibit of each actor’s physical abilities, feels all too distant when it really counts.
Despite its cagey ambiguities within the action-film format, Undisputed is still undone by the overriding formula. Regardless of the monkey wrenches Hill tosses into the clockworks, the film remains the story of two bad macho muthas, a couple of gangsters and a climactic fight where underdogs (despite how difficult they may be to spot) always come out on top.
That Undisputed was even made within the studio system in the first place (imagine the pitch sessions – "they’re both black, and neither one’s a hero\") is reason enough to pay attention. As a baby step towards long-overdue equality and integration in Hollywood, Undisputed is one well worth taking. (For further sharp commentary, check out the Blair Underwood-Julia Roberts storyline in Full Frontal) |
