The Reel Review
The scrappy small-town daughter of a West Virginia coal miner uses her strong left-hook/right-cross combination to take the female boxing world by storm in the late 1980s and 90s, before a series of challenges force her to seek her independence and authentic self. Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster and Merritt Wever star in this sports drama based on the life of boxer Christy Salters Martin.
Say what you will about Sweeney’s politics (or refusal to address her politics), but she is surprisingly convincing as the tough-as-nails prize fighter who finds her biggest battles with two opponents outside the ring – namely, Jim Martin, her controlling trainer turned abusive manager/husband, and her soft-spoken but controlling, conservative mother who’s at odds with Christy’s sexual identity. A shockingly unrecognizable Foster (Hell or High Water) nails his portrait of Martin, as does Wever (Nurse Jackie) as Christy’s repellant mother who’s more concerned about hiding her daughter’s lesbianism than in protecting Christy from domestic violence.
While the film itself is fairly formulaic and at times fails to grasp the real Christy’s actual larger-than-life personality, it is still a riveting reminder of the importance of willpower and perseverance in overcoming adversity.
REEL FACTS
• Sydney Sweeney gained 30 pounds for the role, doing all of her own fight scenes, which included receiving a bloody nose and several concussions. Sweeney drew upon her prior training in boxing, MMA and other combat sports in high school and college.
• At the end of the film before her comeback fight, the security guard fist-bumping Christy is the real Christy Salters.
• Jim Martin, who was sentenced to 25 years for attempted murder, died while in prison in November 2024, a year before the movie was released in theaters.
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