The Brawler

Only if you are a boxing fan would should you consider watching this movie and even then think twice as this movie is god awful. The whole movie is centered around Chuck Wepner and his self-destructive habits. I did not think movies this bad would even be allowed on DVD or streaming, but Hollywood continues to show they have now idea how to make a good movie anymore. Chose something else to watch and this is really not worth your time. But if you insist on watching it, you can scan through the movie quickly as it is such a slow dreary movie you would miss nothing.

Excellent. Never a dull moment. All star cast, Great script and different levels of story telling. We now know why Chuck Wepner is the Real Rocky

This is truly a bad movie. The acting is terrible, the script is terrible, the fights are terrible. I watched maybe 30 minutes of the movie before I gave up. I can't find any good comment to say about that movie.

It didn't help that I watched the two Chuck Wepner films back-to-back to see how they compare. Although Zach McGowan and Jerrod Page barely resemble their respective characters, I will commend their performances, with Page getting the nuances of Ali just right and McGowan giving a performance that is at least different enough from the 2016's Chuck. It was also cool to see Burt Young appear in a film about the man who inspired the Rocky franchise, nice touch there.

Beyond the 1hr mark, it is basically beat-for-beat like the last film. Which begs the question, why does this even exist? I assume, its because they were coincidentally both in production? Regardless, its pretty obvious which one is the better film.

However, there are a few notable differences that were actually BETTER than 'The Bleeder', this film in particular had the balls to include a scene in which Ali wanted Chuck to call him a 'you know what' prior to a press conference to generate buzz, something that the 2016 film completely ignores. In fact, I will say that there is far more interaction between Ali and Wepner in this version than the last. There was also a particularly fantastically-acted argument scene between Chuck and his estranged wife in this film, which I cannot say was in the original.

I will say that the film is basically at its best when its covering events NOT in the 2016 film. His weird antics with the forger John Olsen and the events of suing Sylvester Stallone, though I must admit it takes a very weird turn when it basically portray Sly as a villain by the end of the film, and it just kind of ends abruptly with the lawsuit.

Unfortunately however, its ultimately an inferior version of the film released only a few years before it. With worse pacing, fight choreography, structure, acting and editing. If you're somehow split between watching this or the 2016 film, choose the latter. However, if you simply want another rendition of the Chuck Wepner story told, give this film a watch.

The question is this: Who was dumb enough to give these amateurs the money to make this horrible movie? To call this a cliche boxing movie would be an insult to all of the cliche boxing movies out there. It's hard to identify all of the individual areas where this movie suffers, because everything about it was bad. If you are an aspiring filmmaker, you'll draw inspiration from this. Because if these filmmakers are capable of making a movie that is prominently featured on Netflix, so can you. To give you an idea of how bad this movie is - one of the actors portrays Sylvester Stallone. This particular actor was a very overweight man with pock marked skin and a heavy east coast accent. I don't mean to be insulting, but he looked nothing like Stallone and it was preposterous to watch. I'm genuinely embarrassed for everyone attached to this project. This movie is about Chuck Wepner, "the underdog who went the distance with Muhammad Ali." The only problem with this point is that Ali TKO'd Wepner in the final round of their 1975 fight. Do your homework, fellas.