SPEC D: Philippe Falardeau. U.S. 101 min. Sep 10, 10 pm, Princess Of Wales Sep 11, 1:30 pm, Winter Garden. Rating: NNNN
Falardeau follows last year’s Quebecois satire My Internship In Canada with a 70s biopic about New Jersey boxer Chuck Wepner, whose 1975 championship fight with Muhammad Ali inspired Sylvester Stallone to write Rocky – or so Wepner has always insisted.
The Bleeder offers a fairly equivocal take on that story, with Liev Schreiber (who also co-produced and co-wrote the film) playing the boxer as a loudmouthed hustler who carries himself like a king. It’s the GoodFellas of boxing movies, with Wepner’s self-aggrandizing voice-over constantly challenged by the images we’re seeing – an angry wife (Elisabeth Moss), an alienated brother (Michael Rapaport) and a drug habit that ruined the parts of his life he hadn’t already destroyed.
Wepner might think he’s Rocky Balboa, but Rocky Balboa was a good husband, a good father and a winner. Schreiber and Falardeau let him talk, but their movie has no illusions: The Bleeder knows this guy’s a bum.
