Hands of Stone Review
R: Language Throughout and some Sexuality/Nudity
The Weinstein Company
1 hr and 45 Minutes
Cast:Édgar Ramírez, Robert De Niro, Usher, Ana de Armas, Oscar Jaenada, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Ellen Barkin, Rubén Blade, Reg E. Cathey, with John Turturro, and John Duddy
REVIEW: Most people in the sports and boxing world know the story of Roberto Duran who came from nothing and became a WBC middleweight champion. We also know the story of Sugar Ray Leonard, the WBC middleweight champ before Duran took him down. The only person I know who has a love for this is my own father. But now we have this film Hands of Stone the true story of Roberto Duran. Will this biopic from follow the legacy of great boxing films such as Cinderella Man or end up being another middle of the road boxing story.
THE GOOD: Hands of Stone is one of many boxing films that has a great cast giving great performances. The film prospers from a strong and talented cast that perform extremely well. Ramírez does a fantastic job portraying Duran when he is both focused on being a great fighter to being the lowest of the low human being. Usher does a rather fantastic job as Sugar Ray from not only the look but from his mannerisms and the voice. But the real actor who sells this film is De Niro as Arcel. De Niro does what he does best which is acting his ass off with dialogueto go against someone else’s dialogue. Most of his scenes involves a lot of banter and training Duran but in the year where we cringed through every childish moment in Bad Grandpa, his performance in this reminds us why we love him as an actor.
A great aspect of the film is something that was said before it was played (I was at the premiere by the way). The director Jonathan Jakubowicz said that this was the first mainstream film that centered around Latinos. Most of the dialogue in this film is in Spanish which is good. It shows the Panamanian heritage of Duran and doesn’t bother to spoon feed the audience by having everything be in English. You really do put in the wok by reading every piece of dialogue.
The boxing scenes in the film are intense. The camera is very all over the place at times, but thee are a lot of slo mo shots that is brilliantly sound edited. With every critical punch you hear bones crack, heads spinning, lot of spitting. All these realistic boxing aspects the only thing missing is blood. The film is rated R, but it shies away from showing how bloody the sport is. But the fighting is brutal and it shamelessly shows.
THE BAD: As much the talent keeps this film afloat, the story goes as your typical boxing film. The film has a lot of scenes that don’t mesh well together. The first 30 minutes is really solid showing the beginnings of Duran but then after he defeats Sugar Ray, the film gradually goes downhill from there. The movie just displays scenes of brief conversations to sex scenes to more brief conversations that either goes nowhere or just does something silly. There are constant fade ins and fade outs and you don’t even know what is going on. In the end the film just gives up and follow the tropes of every boxing film. Its make a very special story extremely generic and cliched to a point that the end just says fuck it and goes full on Rocky.
The film doesn’t even feature enough good character. Sugar Ray and Ray Arcel are great characters and people to follow, but the film is centered around Duran who is portrayed to be a complete asshole. I would love to think Duran is a great guy but as a character he is shown as a manipulative and conceited man who barely has any respect for others especially women. The way how he gets Leonard from all the amount of shit talking to get him riled up is just so mean spirited that by the time he wins you don’t feel good for Duran but feel more bad fir Ray. But when it shows how Ray won in the rematch, you feel good for him which only leads for Duran to act like more of an asshole to a point its hazardous to everyone around him. There’s moments you feel bad for him, you don’t feel BAD for him. There isn’t much development to his character until the last 15 minutes but by that point, its too little too late
LAST STATEMENT: Hands of Stone is a film of eh. Filled with great performances, yet poor with character and cohesive filmmaking to a make a competent film that only comes out as incompetent at best.
Rating: 2/5 | 44%
Super Scene: He’s in jail.
