The Featherweight movie review

MOVIE TITLE: The Featherweight

This creative sports biopic premiered at the 80^th Venice International Film Festival. It hits theaters in New York, Connecticut (where the story takes place), and Los Angeles first, then moves nationwide in October 2024.

RATING: R

LENGTH: 1 hour 39 minutes

MOVIE REVIEW MOM GRADE: B

SPONSOR of Today’s movie review:

The biography of Willie Pep on paperback can be found on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3TOYqD2

IN A NUTSHELL:

The film was beautifully directed by Robert Kolodny in his debut. Screenwriting credits go to Steve Loff. Robert Greene served as one of the producers and also as the film editor.

Already, the film has been nominated for and won awards at several film festivals, including “Best Director of a Narrative Film”, “Best Director”, and “Grand Prize”. Congratulations to the team!

THINGS I LIKED:

James Madio does an excellent job as Willie Pep. And, yes, Willie Pep was a real-life boxer who held the title of World Featherweight champion two times between the years 1942 and 1950. His real name was Guglielmo Papaleo. James gives an excellent performance and truly disappears in the role.
The rest of the cast also does a fantastic job and includes Ron Livingston, Stephen Lange, Ruby Wolf, Keir Gilchrist, Michael Siberry, and Lawrence Gilliard Jr.
You might remember that Ron Livingston, Frank John Hughes, and James Madio were all in the hit TV series Band of Brothers in 2001. That’s such an incredible show.
The American-Italian, east-coast accents were terrific.
We get to see what is made to look like old footage, as well as actual clips, taking us back to Pep’s glory days and the 1960s. The film truly captures the spirit of the period.
The goal of the film was to give it the look and feel of a documentary. It includes interviews with various people, old photographs and video clips, providing Italian translations into English when needed, and names of characters written on the screen like the ones we see in documentaries.
It’s almost crazy to think of a 42-year-old as a has-been, but in sports, that’s kind of true. The film does a great job illustrating how we can hang on to our past and wish we could go back to our younger, better selves, but that we need to set new goals to move forward in life.
I loved the smile at the fight at the end of the movie. It said SO much.
The music is never overbearing. That final song was really great and matched the feeling of that last scene so well.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

There’s a LOT of shaky cam, intentionally trying to imitate an old documentary film. It’s effective, but shaky cam makes me so dizzy. It’s also partly an insult to documentary filmmakers, insinuating that they can’t hold the film steady.
Some scenes could have been tightened up to hold the audience’s interest better.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

Young kids will be extremely bored. Teens might be interested if they’re into boxing and/or history.
Cigarette smoking
Lots of alcohol
Talk of pre-marital relations and infidelity
Some profanity and F-bombs
Bickering adults
Illegal drug use is portrayed.
Some Italian is spoken with subtitles.

THEMES:

Looking back at your glory days
Boxing
Italian-Americans
Pride and ego
Age
Living your dream
Wanting to feel special

FUNNY LINES:

“I’m not going to win any beauty contest with this face.” – Willie Pep (James Madio)
“I’m older now so I’m always looking back.” – Willie Pep (James Madio)

INTERESTING LINES:

“I’m trying to figure out how honest to be.” – Linda Papaleo (Ruby Wolf)
“Willie, you don’t have to be a hero forever. You just come here. I just wish he would let it go.” – Fran Papaleo (Shari Albert)