Back in the Day

A young man grows up In a mob controlled neighbourhood in Brooklyn. Being half Italian and half Puerto Rican he faces constant challenges. His father is a drunk and his mother is always working which gives him ample time to pound the sand bag. Michael Madsen plays a mob boss who sets up the boy with a trainer played by Danny Glover, seeing potential in him. His mother is killed by a hit and run driver which changes his life. He now strives to be middleweight champion of the world.

They try and make a Rocky meets Goodfellas with mostly unbelievable characters. Alec Baldwin and Madsen do fine but the rest? The story focuses on his growing up and the life around him. The run time is two hours which is too long for this one. Mike Tyson's cameo was cheesy as he shows up to give the boxer a pep talk, which looks like he was reading off a prompt.

I knew this movie wasn't going to be a classic before I watched it, so my expectations were low going in. The opening scenes were actually quite promising. I'm a sucker for nostalgia and for the whole plucky underdog made good thing. However, this movie didn't work for me. The plot is thick with the worst kind of tropes. I mean, really thick. I'd love to say it was so bad, it was good... But it really wasn't. I'd skip this one if I were you. Its not rocky and it's not good- fellas. It has a MOTW feel. I believe the main actor also wrote it. I wonder if he funded it too? I can't understand how it would have got made otherwise. There are some good actors in there, but they're under utilised and don't make any impact. There's even a surprise cameo towards the end. I won't spoil it, but it's laughable. By that point, after cliché on top of cliché, the scene just felt self indulgent.

This has to be the most pathetic attempt to steal from the movies a bronx tale, mean, streets, goodfellas and rocky. No script pr storyline. No cinematography and bad music soundtrack. Its as if the lead actor wants to live out his fantasy of being Rocky. The story focuses on Lefty played by the shows producer, director, camera man and scriptwriter william demeo who at the of 59 wants to make a boxing comeback. The younger version is played by cris demeo who is such a bad actor you wonder how he really gets any role. Do not waste your time on this trash movie.

William DeMeo really must be a nice and communicative guy. He produced, wrote and starred in this film (he's the main character: the Anthony Rodriguez guy, the boxer…) and I think he saved it too.

I'm saying it because sometimes it's only because of him if some really badly written and really badly acted scenes did not kill the entire story.

This is the (long: about two hours) story of a Brooklyn middleweight trying to fight his way through all the difficulties that life and a violent neighborhood put on his path. It's a classic, so don't expect anything original: the plot is catching nonetheless and some very good actors (Alec Baldwin, Danny Glover, William Madsen…) help the film shine and look more real.

I really like boxing movies, so when I read the summary and saw the cast I thought this was going to be a pretty good flick...I watched the whole movie, but never really got into it.

The boxing lead didn't come off as a very good actor and I had a lot of trouble buying Shannen Doherty as the love interest he spent so long pining away for. I'm sure they are close in actual age, but Doherty looks like she's in her mid 50's in this movie and she's not in very good shape, which made the flashbacks to when they younger look kind of weird.

I think the screenplay itself was probably fine, this movie just needed a slightly different cast along with better directing...