Who's in It: Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett, Kathryn Morris, Teri Hatcher, Alan Alda, Rachel Nichols, David Paymer, Peter Coyote
The Basics: Struggling mediocre sports journalist Hartnett, a guy who also feeds his six-year-old son tall tales about knowing famous sports figures, meets homeless Jackson in an alley. Because Jackson can throw a punch and tell a convincing story, Hartnett writes a profile on the near-champion boxer Jackson claims to be. The only catch is that Hartnett was sleeping in that junior college journalism class on the day they told him about how you have to fact-check stuff. Meanwhile, Hartnett's young son has to deal with the fact that his dad is a sucky journalist and maybe also lying about knowing John Elway. Whoops.
What's the Deal? I was looking forward to another histrionic Rod Lurie movie like The Contender, the one where Joan Allen is a politician accused of having group sex. Or maybe like Deterrence, the one about a nuclear-weapons showdown. Or maybe The Last Castle, the one about a wacky concentration-camp-like prison. He's good at making crazy-bad hack-ish movies, and I was hoping for more of the same. So what does he go and do? He makes a calmed-down, smoothed-out piece of maudlin father-and-son jive that tries to give its audience a lesson about personal integrity. Shut up, Rod Lurie!
What's Great: Two things. The first is Jackson's voice. It's kind of a toss-up as to which recent historical figure he's impersonating. Is it Mike Tyson at 65? Miles Davis as a washed-up boxer? Cicely Tyson as Miles Davis as Jackson? You can spend the whole movie trying to figure it out, and there's your entertainment. It's not enough entertainment, but it's something. Thing two is Hatcher getting Method-y with her portrayal of a sex-starved Showtime executive, which I'm sure endlessly pleases the people at Showtime.
What's Not So Bad: Hartnett. I've always thought he was a non-entity on screen. But here he acts like he's finally started shaving (almost) and also come to realize that "wooden" isn't something to strive for. So points for that.
Who Should See It: Field of Dreams addicts with seriously low expectations.