Price of Glory

I was lucky enough to catch this in the theatres twice. It's a great boxing film that not only deals with the glamours of boxing but also with the dark business side of it. When it was first released it was underrated and poorly promoted. Definitely worth a rental. Touching storyline and great action sequences.

I truly enjoyed this film and not because of its conventional plot. There is a young star on the rise in the character of Johnny (Ernesto Hernandez) that reminds me of Oscar de La Hoya. He is charismatic and I wish the story had centered more around him. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the film even though, I am not a boxing fan

The plot of this film is a bit different from others on the same subject. It is about a frustrated boxer, who looks for fame training his three sons, most of them with capacities, but not to win a world championship. The ex- boxer is so selfish, so ambitious as to become the dictator of his sons. One of them is killed, the youngest one, while another is defeated severely in the ring. The remaining one already married tried to revenge the death of his brother and the defeat of the other with the same fighter, and finally wins backed by his father once again as his second. Maffia people around professional boxing business are seen once again in this film.

PRICE OF GLORY (2000) **1/2 Jimmy Smits, Jon Seda, Clifton Collins, Jr., Maria Del Mar, Sal Lopez, Louis Mandylor, Danielle Camastra, Ernesto Hernandez, Paul Rodriguez, Ron Perlman.

Familiar yet well acted boxing oriented family affair drama with Smits as a patriarch to a brood of budding boxers who lives his failed dreams vicariously through his tough yet tender hearted loving sons who each must face their own destinies while pledging allegiance to their well-meaning but demanding father. The storyline, although predictable, cuts to the bone how one man's failure can be resurrected by his family and realizing before it's too late that sometimes a dream may only be just that. (Dir: Carlos Avila)

Price of Glory By Dean Kish

Rocky meets Mi Familia or is it more than that? “Price of Glory” chronicles the life of Arturo Ortega (Jimmy Smits) who lost his fighting edge early in his prize fighting career. Now thirteen years later, he trains his three boys to take him back to the top. What Ortega seems to forget is the boxing world is full of corruption, blood and honor. Can he help one of his boys reach the goal that eluded him? “Price of Glory” breaks some new ground in boxing films by mixing family conflicts with the high stakes of the boxing world. Another important part of this new ground was the Latino angle. I can’t remember seeing a film about Latino fighters even though some of them are the best boxers in the world. It made me curious to see if the training and development of a boxer is different with a different cultural background. I believed that the boxing would be the bridge to stretch across the cultures.

There are some that will have a hard time with the detailed Latino content. It is at times hard to relate to that cultural barrier. Are some of the elements pressed upon these incorrigible youths from the society or a ploy by the writer himself? The intensity locked within Smits’ patriarch maybe that cultural barrier I couldn’t quite understand. Stubborn, determined, passionate, proud and obsessed, Smits delivers a great performance but what exactly is this character’s motives? Is he doing it for himself or to better his kids lives? These begging questions made you feel the frustration in the boys when their father would explode. He was the lord of the household and he ran their lives. Did this character have to be such a tyrant at times to get his point across? Or was this yet again a cultural thing? “Price of Glory” has a lot of great boxing sequences and I did like the evolution of the child boxer but being an outsider to this culture it is a little hard to grasp the motive locked within Smits’ beautiful portrayal. His questions are never quite answered. Even with the tragedy that grips the Ortegas there is never really see an answer. What we do see is a Rocky type finale which delves into the family pulling together to defeat the champion. I half expected to be brother against brother for the title but even though it was straight from Rocky it was nice to see a full Hollywood fight. “Price of Glory” opened more questions than answered them for me. (3 of 5) So Says the Soothsayer. (Opens March 31st)