Fat City

Fat City is a small film directed on location in Stockton, California by legendary director John Huston.

It is about small time boxers and small time losers. Stacy Keach is a washed up boxer, a drunk, making a comeback but really not up to it. He is in a tempestuous relationship with Susan Tyrell who is magnificent as his drunk girlfriend. The booze oozes out of her pores and she really cracks that paralytic look in her face.

Jeff Bridges is the up and coming boxer but he immediately loses his early fights, he gets his pretty girlfriend, Candy Clark pregnant and gets some irregular work as a labourer sometimes working with Keach in the fields.

There is nothing grandiose or bombastic about Fat City. It really is introverted dealing with the underclass in the early 1970s. The location filming adds a lot of authenticity and rawness.

Keach who was a noted Shakespearean actor of the American stage is very believable. He plays not a has been but a never was, who wants to have that one final crack of something big but he will get nowhere it as he always gets sidetracked, usually by booze.

Bridges at the time was the young up and comer with a mixture of enthusiasm and wide eyed innocence. He was 23 years old when he made this film and was already a veteran with an Oscar nomination to his name as he was a child actor working in his father's show.

A critic pointed out something novel about this boxing film. These almost desperate people we meet go out of their way to be kind to each other no matter how hopeless their situation.

When Keach argues with Tyrell you expect that he will hit her. When her ex-boyfriend turns up, you again expect that he will get in a fight with Keach. However you find people struggling to be nice and civil to each other.

Boxing actually plays a small part in the film. Fat City is a forgotten gem of 1970s cinema.

Fat City has deservedly taken its place among the fine films about boxing that Hollywood has done. It most closely resembles Requiem For A Heavyweight and you get double the entertainment because it's about two boxers in that division whose prospects for success are limited.

Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges meet at a YMCA gym. Keach a heavyweight who has seen better days was a good prospect to go all the way, but he married the wrong woman who drained him dry and left him. But Keach is a glutton for punishment and he's taken up with Susan Tyrell who is mesmerizing when she's on the screen. Not that the prospects are good for him to hold out for something better, he's no prize either.

But Keach sends Bridges to his former manager Nicholas Colosanto and he also joins them. Bridges has never had a professional fight, but he's clean cut, all American and white. He might be a good draw if he can learn to fight. His debut isn't promising. And he and wife Candy Clark face the problems of all newlyweds.

The air of sadness that hangs around Fat City is that the audience knows full well these guys aren't going anywhere. Keach gets matched with a similar over the hill heavyweight played nicely by Sergio Rodriguez. He barely outlasts him and while the little entourage is celebrating this beginning of a comeback, we see Sergio leave the arena alone as the lights turn out after him. Very effectively staged by John Huston.

The highlight of Fat City is Susan Tyrell who as TCM was showing this film as its prime time feature was reported to have passed away. What an incredible performance as a down and out alcoholic. She received the only Oscar recognition for Fat City as she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Boxing fans will appreciate the realistic approach Fat City takes in regard to the sport. Others of us will just like the great performances and realistic filming that typifies Fat City.

I had deliberately overlooked Fat City in the past believing it to be yet another twist on the formulaic and Hollywoodization of boxing stories. Was I wrong! I'm so glad that I unexpectedly caught this and was riveted from the get go. Fat City is an amazing film, made even more stellar by the casting of Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Candy Clark and Nick Colasanto. It is hard to distinguish between these marvelous actors as their performances, under the hands of the maestro John Huston, are incredible. Stacy Keach is the focus however, and he carries the film with the able performances of the aforementioned. I believe this to be one of the most overlooked films of all time.

The characters are a bunch of losers, but they don't know they're losers and keep reiterating their dreams. They operate on a level that is below average and live in impoverished surroundings, always believing that something good is around the corner. There is no big win in this, the wins remain around the corner.

There's basically no beginning, middle and end. It is a study of the underbelly of a town in California, the seedy bars, the dirty restaurants, life in the one room with kitchen-in-a-corner of a walk-up fleabag hotel. Stacy Keach pulls you into this world, he lives and breathes the character he plays down to the last few minutes of screen time when he takes a look around the rathole of a restaurant he's in, surrounded by people like himself and the film freezes for about a minute before it moves on.

You catch his stark awareness at that moment. And all of his life, past, present and future becomes crystal clear to him. You don't think he's going to do much with this newfound insight. It doesn't matter. And that's the point. Bleak and beautiful. All in the same minute of time. 9 out of 10. Thanks once again, Mr. Huston.

The down-to-earth tale of two small hall boxers -- at the opposite ends of their careers -- and the blows they take in and out of the ring.

This is one of the best American movies ever about normal working class lives where failure is common and the only thing you can do is pretend otherwise or drug it all away to nothing. I know why so many people prefer Rocky to this -- this is too real for them. Indeed it is almost too real for me!

Stacey Keach was given the role of lifetime in this. He really does look like a failing boxer turned to flab (although maybe that is nature -- not punches!) trying to find a life (of sorts) beyond the ring. Bridges really does look and sound like the daydreamer believer that makes the boxing game go round. Johnny No Talent who thinks he is Mike Tyson when his face finally clears up.

They don't make films like this anymore. The Europeans can, although they are rarely shown and end up too self indulgent. Everyone here gets what they deserve, which is sadly, very little. That is what sport is about in real life -- lots of people failing so that are very small few can succeed. The best the majority can hope for is some exercise and comradeship.

(This contrasts with most sports movies -- which are about glory. Or at least glory through struggle.)

This is the best late John Huston film and every single frame is a frame of reality and believability. Maybe that is what leads so many people to say "so what", the world outside their window has many of the same elements and there are many times you feel you are -- indeed -- looking at real life.

The 1970s produced some of the greatest American movies of all time, that's indisputable. But while everyone focuses on (the admittedly very good) more famous works by Scorsese and Coppola, many equally worthwhile movies get little attention - 'Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia', 'Scarecrow', 'Fingers', 'Tracks', 'The Panic In Needle Park', 'Blue Collar', and this one, arguably John Huston's most underrated film. The four leads Stacey Keach ('The Ninth Configuration'), Jeff Bridges ('The Last Picture Show'), Susan Tyrrell ('The Killer Inside Me'), and Candy Clark ('American Graffiti') are all outstanding, and in Keach's case it's possibly his finest performance to date. What an underrated actor Keach is! This is a powerful and haunting look at the underbelly of American working class life, a subject very rarely dealt with honestly in contemporary Hollywood films. 'Fat City' doesn't deserve its obscurity. It is a small masterpiece. Highly recommended to people who value downbeat and realist dramas more than dumbed down popcorn "entertainment".