Hands of Stone on Netflix

I dialed this one up last night. As a recent movie on Netflix, I thought I would give it a quick review.

The movie covers boxing champ Roberto Duran's life from childhood, through his feud with Sugar Ray Leonard, to his reclamation of a world title afterward.

I thought it was an average movie.

The good: I thought it was well-shot and I bought the acting in the movie. I didn't have trouble believing the actors, who are playing real people that I remember from my childhood.

The bad: Duran as a character is not a likable protagonist. It's a puzzling choice for treatment in a movie. This is a real-life character who famously quit a title fight out of frustration, and that was probably the high point of his fame (not the high point of his accomplishments, though). What I mean to say is... his accomplishments don't rise up high enough to cover his most infamous act. It's hard to put together a movie where the second act adversity defines the character.

The ugly: I didn't care for the director's focus on Duran's anti-American slant. I understand that Duran might have hated Americans, but this is not fully developed enough to justify the constant cutaway shots depicting the USA as bad guys in 1980's Panama.

Overall, It's a two-star movie that tells an unconventional story in an unconvincing way.