Hands Of Stone (2016)

One sport that I have loved as a child besides wrestling was the sweet science of Boxing. It was a sport where two men met in the ring and they let it all out for 12 or more rounds at a time until one was winner. There have been countless boxers that I wish they would make biopics for and this week’s is one that I have been dying to see for a little while now. So, when you combine those two things (biopics and boxing) then I have to watch it which is the case with today's film Hands Of Stone. The film follows the journey of not just legendary lightweight and absolute bad ass boxer Roberto Durán (played by Edgar Ramírez) and his rise from poverty in Panama to world champion, but it also follows that of his legendary trainer Ray Arcel (played by Robert De Niro) who made his return to the sport he loved and had to let go of for a while all because he believed in the ability of Roberto Duran. Watch as their journey for respect goes through it’s trials and tribulations. The film also stars Usher Raymond (The Faculty) as Sugar Ray Leonard, Ana de Armas (War Dogs) as Felicidad Iglesias, Pedro Perez as Plomo, Rubén Blades (Predator 2) as Carlos Eleta, Óscar Jaenada (The Shallows) as Chaflan, and the film was directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz.

One of my favorite things about the film was definitely the acting from De Niro, Ramírez, and even Usher Raymond. They did an amazing job of painting who Sugar Ray Leonard was back in the day and they fear they had of his boxing style which by the way is not a fear of whether he’ll hurt you or not. However they do portray Roberto as this immature punk kid who has never been disciplined in his life because of how amazing of a boxer he was. They portray him at times to be the uneducated idiot with gloves who couldn’t see the bigger picture. What they do eventually show is his maturity and accent into manhood later in the film. They do a pretty good job with the fight choreography which you have to give kudos to as they try to cut an hour fight into mere minutes and that is difficult because you have to choose the best moments. One of the other things about the film that I loved was the beautiful Ana de Armas who plays Roberto’s wife the film because she was not only great, but she had some amazing scenes in the film (see pic below). Other than that, it was a pretty decent film and it had some amazing cinematography to boot especially the scenes in Panama. The film does at times show how easy it is for a child to grow to hate America just on what he went through and saw in his life. You’ll understand what I am talking about throughout the film. I am going to give the film an A- for a final grade.

Knock Knock (2015)

At one point in the early to mid 2000's, there was a new group of horror directors that were taking the genre by storm and one of those was Eli Roth who made films like Cabin Fever, Hostel, and The Green Inferno to name a few. So for today's film, I thought I would check out one that Eli both wrote, Produced and directed in 2015's Knock Knock. The film stars Keanu Reeves (The Devil's Advocate) as Evan, an architect, a husband, and a devoted father who has to stay behind thanks to work while the wife and kids go out to the beach home. While a night alone in your home sounds good to most, it's about to get interesting for Evan when he helps out two girls stranded in the rain. What was a kind gesture by Evan, quickly turns into a seductively deadly game of cat and mouse that will make Evan regret what he did. The film also stars Lorenza Izzo (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood) as Genesis, Ana de Armas (Hands Of Stone) as Belle, Ignacia Allamand (The Green Inferno) as Karen, Aaron Burns (The Green Inferno) as Lewis, Colleen Camp (Die Hard With A Vengeance) as Vivian, Dan Baily as Jake, Megan Baily as Lisa,  Antonio Quercia (La leyenda de el Crack) as Uber Driver, and Otto as Monkey. 

I had an idea as far as what direction they were going to take in the film just based on the trailer alone and this was a film that so many told me to avoid watching, but I don't understand why. Does it have it's flaws? Sure, it has plenty of flaws contained within it, but I will say one thing and that is Ana de Armas was definitely not one of them. She had me convinced the whole entire film that something was seriously deranged about her and I am not taking anything away from Lorenza, but she just seemed like a follower while Ana was the real messed up one. Some of the dialogue in the beginning of the film was kind of atrocious and I could have done without plenty of it, but it's after the deal is done that I think the film gets better. The girls turn up the intensity on Keanu Reeves and I finally saw some emotion out of the guy that was above what he had done before. There are some pretty intense scenes in the film, but the last sequence of the film has to be one of those that when it's over you're like I was pretty sure that A was going to happen and not B. As good or as bad as you may think the film was, one thing that I was happy about was that Monkey, that adorable French Bulldog was not harmed at all during the film. I would have shut off the film if he had been, but with that being said, watch at your own risk and leisure. I am going to give the film an B- for a for a final grade.