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Lets hear it for the heavyweight champion of the world, yeah so what. All that means is that fighter got a lucky shot or the other guy was having a bad day. So why is so much attention, money and power given to a guy that can box? And why are so many movies made about boxers? Why, because there are so many people willing and eager to pay a lot of money to see someone kick another person’s ass, that’s why. Undisputed stars Wesley Snipes (Blade II) as Monroe Hutchens, a former small time medium weight boxer serving a life sentence at Sweetwater Prison. He is also the prison’s undisputed boxing champion. What put this guy in prison? Murder. Also coming to this prison is Ving Rhames (Final Fantasy) as George the Iceman Chambers, currently the heavyweight-boxing champion. Only he is about to be stripped of this title He claims he didn’t rape that girl. This could be true, but this arrogant, son of a bitch is despicable so I can see why a jury would not buy his story. Every six months or so Sweetwater holds a boxing match with other prisons. This sounds like a good way to handle our convicted rapists and murders by venting a little steam. Teach them to box, let them get even stronger with workouts and training. I sure wouldn’t want to work in a prison where they encourage the inmates to become even more of a lethal weapon with their hands no less. Well the first thing the Iceman does when arriving at Sweetwater is let everyone know who is in charge by knocking people around. Then threatens the warden with an “if anything happens to me here, the whole world will know about it” speech. The warden deals with this by punishing everyone else. Then there is racketeer Mendy Ripstein (Peter Falk of Corky Romano) who is doing time for tax evasion. Okay since when does a white-collar convict do time with violent criminals? This ruins the whole story for me. If they wanted to put this guy with the others, why have his crime be tax evasion instead of murder, after all he is with the syndicate. Well, Mendy is a lover of the fights. His love for this sports goes back all the way to London rules, no gloves or refs. Well he wants to see the Iceman lose to Hutchens (so does the rest of the prison), so it is time for a fight. So all this testosterone-pissing match comes down to this one fight, game over, movie over. Rhames is truly wicked. He plays this jackass beautifully. Snipes plays it cool like my man Denzel did in The Hurricane. I don’t really have any problems with the writing of David Giler and Walter Hill, except for how Ripstein ended up at Sweetwater, his cell privileges and how the mob was able to hire someone (Jon Seda as Jesus Chuy Campos), to look out for Ripstein. Then if they had as much power as it turned out, why then did they leave Ripstein to die in the pokey and was able to get another person out? Hey, so what if you were the champion of the world, you ain’t no mo, he is just a rapist now, so lock him up and shut him up. Director Walter Hill did a fine job in directing the boxing sequence, but adapting it into a story, give me a break. Also appearing in this picture was Fisher Stevens as Ratbag Dolen (you remember him as Gary’s friend from Early Edition) and Michael Rooker from the 6th Day. I gave Undisputed a five on the About-Movies.com scale. Later
Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:48:33 AM Click Here to get back into frames.
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