Hands of Stone

 

                             Typical nights not sure what to watch, moreover I even asked a friend what a movie of choice would be a Nic Cage movie called Drive Angry or a movie where Usher plays a legendary boxer Sugar Ray Leonard. Unfortunately, the friend thought it was funny that Usher was playing Sugar Ray Leonard, so he said the movie with Usher. But sad news the movie is not about Sugar Ray Leonard it's about a rival that I've never heard of at that time, which was Roberto Duran. I will confess, I heard about this movie via trailers on YouTube, moreover was intrigued by the premise of the movie, though once I saw the 30 for 30 movie of No Mas which tells the story of Duran and Leonard and once I saw the whole story, I felt best that I should just avoid the movie all together, though as time when on and Tubi is the hidden gem app that you can watch things for free, moreover wasn't sure what to watch so might as well give Hands of Stone a shot.

                             At age 72, legendary trainer Ray Arcel (Robert De Niro) comes out of retirement to coach world-class Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran (Edgar Ramirez). Arcel becomes a mentor to the ferocious fighter, convincing him that winning ultimately comes down to strategy. After scoring knockout after knockout, Duran prepares for a bout against Sugar Ray Leonard (Usher), the undefeated lightweight champion. Five months later, on Nov 1980, the two titans meet for an infamous rematch that makes boxing history.

                             Surprisingly, this was not so bad of a movie that I have envisioned, in most bio pic's this was not doubt. But, in all honesty there was something unique and special about it because in most cases the show Drunk History kind of ruined the bio pic's when it comes to story wise. I will admit it has been a while since I have seen the documentary of No Mas, so my memory was vague but watching Hands of Stone all the way through I must admit that this was a good boxing movie to watch from start to finish. The best casting, they did was bring Robert De Niro in the role of Arcel, and to be honest if you are ever making a movie about Boxing whether it is a comedy or drama you should always cast De Niro in a boxing movie, probably not a comedy since him and Stallone failed at that, unless you make a good comedy with right hands. Edgar Ramirez actually did a great job playing Duran he really does a good job showing all emotions in terms of anger and happiness then showing some doubt when it comes to not succeeding, he also has the best line where he talks about not wanting to be starve no more, a side from the lazy script writing I thought Ramirez did a great job playing Duran furthermore embodied all of the emotions and stubbornness Roberto Duran carried his entire life. The one person I was surprised was in the movie to begin with was Ana de Armas who plays the wife to Roberto Duran, for which I was like "oh snap" because I had no clue, she was in this movie at all and not to say she was great when it comes to performance wise which she is does a great job, but she was also beautiful as well. The main problem I have with the movie, is that the movie itself is very on the poor writing scale when it comes to writing a Boxing film, granted the movie does focus on Roberto Duran, but should also focus more on Sugar Ray Leonard and good as Usher portrayed him I feel like we didn't get enough of him and why he wanted to fight him because in the documentary we have a reason as to why he wanted to know what happen that people believed that Sugar Ray forced Duran to back down, and I felt like when we get to Duran's downfall and needing to make a comeback we should also have more of Sugar Ray being haunted by the rematch on if he won or not, and really the biggest problem is that the movie should focus a lot more equally on both Duran and Sugar Ray, and this movie is roughly about two hours so you could at least squeeze in a good two hour and ten minute film to add more of the rivalry between these legendary fighters. Now before I close this, I should give on praise to a guy that was uncredited but does a killer Don King impersonation Reg E. Cathey, though granted the man is in very little of the movie but it is always awesome to see at least one actor in the world that can pull off a killer Don King accent. The movie itself is not bad at all, just the poor writing and less character development is what drive the movie down as a whole. Hands of Stone is not the worst I have seen moreover still like the telling of Duran's story so I would most certainly recommend watching this from start to finish.