Within the pantheon of American boxing movies, from On the Waterfront to Creed, none stray too far from the template: You have your working-class, punch-drunk dullard with aspirations of being a champion. Nobody believes in him, but he plans to overcome the odds and be one of the greats. He falls in love with a neighborhood girl, and/or finds a spiritual mentor in a trainer. Miraculously, he finds himself faced with the fight of his life! Whether he wins or loses âthe big fight,â heâll defy the odds, gain success and/or celebrity, and likely spiral into a pattern of nefariousness or poverty. Sometimes he can dig himself out and be great again. Sometimes itâs too late.Â
While Chuck fits almost perfectly into said pugilist film pigeonhole, it has a light-hearted self-awareness that sets it apart from the rest. It also holds up a mirror to other boxing films because it recounts a period in the career of real-life fighter Chuck Wepner, whoâaccording to some, including Wepnerâinspired Sylvester Stalloneâs Rocky.
The first chunk of Chuck is, essentially, a condensed version of that sports movie templateâbut the meat of the film depicts the aftermath of Wepnerâs 1975 fight with Muhammad Ali. Here, Wepner, AKA âThe Bayonne Bleeder,â is bril- liantly played by Liev Schreiber, whose thick New Jersey accent never falters, and who moves through every scene with a goofy swagger. Consequently, the tragic tone that most boxing films have never comes into playâeven when Wepner battles the law, or faces marital strife with Phyllis (Elisabeth Moss), his âneighborhood girlâ of a wife, thereâs a lightnessâand, thanks to the real-life Rocky connections, a meta-nessâto Wepnerâs misfortune and misadventure.