Uppercut

A reprise of the familiar tale of an old trainer teaching a callow young boxer, this disjointed story feels like the screenplay was fed into a shredder and then hastily reassembled.

“Uppercut” is essentially every cliché of the boxing movie genre rolled into one, but without much of a punch.

The basic story is a reprise of “Million Dollar Baby.” Nobody girl walks into the gym of a storied boxing trainer and begs him to teach her. He refuses, but something about the kid’s plucky never-say-quit attitude gets to him, and he relents. They bond, he mentors, she learns about life in the ring and outside of it, and then she fights.

Well, minus the fighting part.

The curious thing about “Uppercut,” written and directed by Torsten Ruether, is that the main character, Toni (Luise Großmann) never actually steps into the ring for a real fight. In fact, all of her relationship with Elliott (Ving Rhames) takes place over the course of one night, the one where they first meet. He tells her repeatedly she hasn’t got what it takes to be a fighter, but she refuses to believe it.

This main story is intercut with another look at Toni some years later. Although it’s never directly stated, it seems clear from this framing device that Toni never did become a serious boxer. But she has become one of the top managers of other fighters. Being a woman and a German working in the American boxing world, this makes her fascinating novelty.

Older Toni is jaded, tough and cynical. One of her new young clients, Payne Harris (Jordan E. Cooper), is about to step into the ring for his first major fight. Toni is worried she’ll have egg on her face if this prospect flames out. She refuses to even sit ringside, instead watching the bout nervously on TV from the locker room while trading pissy phone calls with her guy, Darius, never seen, about the care of their daughter, also never seen.

To further complicate matters, the modern story is itself spliced up with Payne first confronting Toni about her refusal to take him on as a boxer. This is clearly intended as a parallel with Toni’s own first encounter with Elliott.

So, what we’ve got here is a curious animal of a movie. It’s a boxing movie with very little boxing in it, and none of it by the main character. It’s a whole lot of talking about boxing, and about life, and the differences between how Elliott views boxing as a way of life and Toni seeing it as an opportunity to become somebody.

Honestly, at times it’s hard to follow along. It feels like the screenplay was fed into a shredder and then the pieces hastily reassembled.

It’s at its best when it serves as a showpiece for Rhames. In contrast to his usual snarly or wiseacre roles, his Elliott is very calm and still

. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and isn’t afraid to show them. He cares very much about boxing, considering it an art form, and has little use for those who are unwilling to sacrifice for excellence.

A former champ himself who fell on hard times while still young, Elliott holds no grudges and accepts no excuses.

“I don't train fighters. I make fighters,” he insists.

Großmann, who goes by the stage name Luiii, is harder to clock. Her portrayal of Toni is full of energy but little aim. The character feels unbalanced and all over the place.

Her German accent gets in the way — not just in terms of being hard to understand, which does happen, but accentuating the wrong words in a line of dialogue or messing up the flow. At times it feels like she’s reading her lines phonetically off a cue card.

A former elite pole vaulter, Luiii passes the physical test of resembling a fighter, with a solid physique despite being rather small, and looks legit in the various sparring and exercises Elliott puts her through. His methods are a bit unorthodox, such as insisting she train barefoot and whipping tennis balls at her head to mimic an opponent’s punches.

“Uppercut” is trying to be a tidy little character study rather than a “Rocky” style rise-up story with lots of blood and mayhem in the ring. But it punches wildly, landing no blows that make a serious impact emotionally on the audience.

“Uppercut” will play in a limited theatrical run but you’ll have a better chance catching it on VOD on the usual streaming platforms.