His
story might sound familiar, but it is important to understand he is the
original article. New Jersey’s own Chuck Wepner was the inspiration for
Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky and by
extension, dozens of underdog boxer-wrestler-mixed martial artist films. Wepner
was uncharitably known as the “Bayonne Bleeder” due to his unfortunate
propensity to suffer cuts in the ring, but nobody ever questioned his toughest.
Take a trip back to the 1970s to revisit the grunge and the glory of boxing at
the peak of its popularity in Philippe Falardeau’s Chuck (trailer
here),
which opens this Friday in New York following its U.S. premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.
Wepner’s
skills were never that spectacular, but his cement head and dogged
determination won him enough fights to eventually rank him in the top ten. He
just so happened to be the top-ranked white guy just when Muhammad Ali and Don
King were looking for a low-stress title defense they could racially hype.
However, Wepner turned out to be one of the few “Great White Hopes” in the
history of boxing who exceeded expectations. Of course, he never came close to
winning, but he hung in there, making it one of Ali’s ugliest victories ever.
He
was already a local celebrity in Jersey, but Wepner’s gutty performance made him
a minor media celebrity for fifteen minutes. Inevitably, it goes to his head,
costing him his marriage to the long-suffering Phyl. Yet, just like the movie
boxers he inspired, Wepner would have a chance at redemption, but he would have
to look outside the ring.
Chuck (a.k.a. The Bleeder) is a terrific sports biopic
that hits all the right notes. Falardeau and his design team capture all the
grit and sleaze of the 1970s, cruelly inflicting a relentlessly era-appropriate
wardrobe on the big-name cast. The Monsieur Lazhar helmer sure-footedly balances the outrageousness of Wepner’s
frequently over-the-top persona (the film opens in media res with an aging
Wepner’s barfight with a trained bear) and the grimy realism of the Jersey milieu.
Liev
Schreiber (the bane of auto-spelling corrections) is also pitch-perfect as Wepner.
He lays out all of the fighter’s myriad character flaws for all to see, but he
also connects with Wepner’s insecurities. Schrieber develops potent but utterly
believable chemistry with both Elizabeth Moss (who is utterly devastating when tearing
into the cheating Wepner in a pivotal fall-from-grace scene) and a nearly
unrecognizable Naomi Watts, playing the woman who stood by Wepner at his lowest
moments. Plus, for even further hardnosed attitude, the great Ron Perlman does
his thing as Wepner’s grizzled trainer-manager, Al Braverman.