Movies like Rumble Through the Dark
Rumble Through the Dark is about as subtle as a neon casino sign broken to spell «sin» in the middle of a fight, which is a thing that happens in this movie. It’s also about as competent as the fact that one of the letters of that sign continues to be illuminated in certain shots, even after it has been busted during the brawl. Yes, pointing out such little inconsistencies is basically nitpicking, but when it’s at the heart of a piece of such blatant symbolism, one might as well pick away.
The straightforward part of this tale centers on Jack «the Butcher» Boucher (Aaron Eckhart), a bare-knuckle fighter who’s past his prime but barely making a living by taking the fall in matches in a convincing manner. Those two qualities don’t really add up, because surely people can figure out that the guy, who ambles around with a constant hunch, isn’t likely to win, regardless if he throws the match or not, but such details don’t matter to screenwriter Michael Farris Smith.
The important thing is that Jack is basically finished with his career as a fighter, and he doesn’t have much to show for it, except that awful posture, which Eckhart leans into with such distracting enthusiasm that it at least keeps us from hearing how often his Deep South drawl drops over the course of his dialogue. Eckhart is typically a sturdy actor, capable of some quiet and nuanced work at his best, but here, he’s given material that shuns notions like quiet nuance. The directors, brothers Graham and Parker Phillips, don’t seem to have much patience for it, either.
Jack’s current situation is that he’s deeply in debt to crime boss Big Momma Sweet (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who is even better than this material than the movie’s star and at least gets the job done as a threateningly ruthless gangster). He owes her about $12,000, makes that money by betting his ill-gotten fight cash at the casino, and, despite knowing that Big Momma has a target on him because of the symbolism-creating brawl at the gambling joint, ends up losing the money to yet another guy who tries to beat him up and bring him to the crime boss.
All the confusion could have resolved with a simple phone call, which we know Big Momma would take. Where’s the potential for an unnecessarily convoluted plot, though, in making simple, smart decisions when one’s life and livelihood are on the line?
Anyway, the money ends up in the hands of Annette (Bella Thorne), an exotic dancer working with a traveling carnival�one that just happens to be arriving in town and passing the cornfield where Jack is robbed, leaves the thief to die after crashing his truck, and wanders off in a dazed state before retrieving that life-saving money. Her story seems to have absolutely nothing to do with Jack’s beyond the money, but since coincidence and convenience seem to be primarily on Smith’s mind, Annette might actually have a connection to Jack. She discovers that, by the way, because some random woman arrives to tell Jack his life story when Annette is there to overhear it.
If one can ignore the mess of a plot�which also crams some flashbacks of Jack’s childhood with his adoptive mother (played by Virginia Newcomb), who’s currently in a nursing home because Jack also owes money to bank for her house�that just keeps becoming messier, there are a few positive elements here. The Phillips brothers imbue the alternately loud and sappy material with a fine sense of dim and muggy atmosphere, especially at Big Momma’s compound, an old plantation where we expect a lot of people arrive but a fewer number are allowed to leave. The locations feel soaked in heat, from the sun and the random things on fire at the compound, and drenched in sweat, and when the story does settle down a bit with the extraneous contrivances and focuses on the main stakes at hand, the actors revel in the tit-for-tat dialogue, like something out of a more competent Southern neo-noir.
Místo toho, Rumble Through the Dark is more akin to overblown pulp with wholly unconvincing streak of unearned sentimentality. Yes, the tone here is all over the place, too, but that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, considering how inconsistent the movie’s plot, characters, and basic filmmaking are.
Copyright � 2023 Mark Dujsik. Všechna práva vyhrazena.
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10 Best Movies Like ‘Rumble Through the Dark’ To Watch If You Love the Film
Rumble Through the Dark is an action thriller series directed by Parker a graham phillips ze scénáře podle Michael Farris Smith. Film je založen na románu od Farris Smith pojmenovaný Fighter. The film revolves around a desperate, bare-knuckle cage fighter as he fights against increasingly dangerous opponents to save his family home. Rumble Through the Dark stars Aaron Eckhart, Bella Thorne, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, a Ritchie Coster. So, if you love the action thriller film here are some similar movies you could watch next.
Warrior (Starz & Prime Video Add-On)
Synopse: Haunted by a tragic past, Marine Tommy Conlon (Hardy) returns home for the first time in fourteen years to enlist the help of his father (Nick Nolte) to train for SPARTA, the biggest winner-takes-all event in mixed martial arts history. A former wrestling prodigy, Tommy blazes a path toward the championship while his brother, Brendan (Edgerton), an ex-fighter-turned teacher, returns to the ring in a desperate bid to save his family from financial ruin. But when Brendan’s unlikely, underdog rise sets him on a collision course with the unstoppable Tommy, the two brothers must finally confront each other and the forces that pulled them apart, facing off in the most soaring, soul stirring, and unforgettable climax that must be seen to be believed.
Southpaw (Netflix & Rent on Prime Video)
Synopse: From acclaimed director Antoine Fuqua (TRAINING DAY) and screenwriter Kurt Sutter (TV’s SONS OF ANARCHY), SOUTHPAW tells the riveting story of Billy “The Great” Hope, reigning Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World (Academy Award®-nominee Jake Gyllenhaal). Billy seemingly has it all with an impressive career, a beautiful and loving wife (Rachel McAdams), an adorable daughter (Oona Laurence), and a lavish lifestyle. When tragedy strikes and his lifelong manager and friend (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) leaves him behind, Hope hits rock bottom and turns to an unlikely savior at a run-down local gym: Tick Willis (Academy Award®-winner Forest Whitaker), a retired fighter and trainer to the city’s toughest amateur boxers. With his future riding on Tick’s guidance and tenacity, Billy enters one last epic fight as he struggles with redemption and to win back the trust of those he loves.
The Fighter (Netflix, Paramount+ & Rent on Prime Video)
Synopse: Pro Mickyho Warda (Mark Wahlberg) je box rodinnou záležitostí. Jeho tvrdá matka je jeho manažerkou. Jeho nevlastní bratr Dicky (Christian Bale), sám kdysi nadějný boxer, je jeho velmi nespolehlivý trenér. I přes tvrdou práci Micky prohrává, a když ho poslední boj málem zabije, následuje radu své přítelkyně a odtrhne se od rodiny. Pak se Micky stane uchazečem o titul mistra světa a on – a jeho rodina – získá šanci na vykoupení.
Cinderella Man (Netflix & Rent on Prime Video)
Synopse: Academy Award® winners Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger star in this triumphant, powerfully inspiring true story. In a time when America needed a champion, an unlikely hero would arise, proving how hard a man would fight to win a second chance for his family and himself. Suddenly thrust into the national spotlight, boxer Jim Braddock would defy the odds against him and stun the world with one of the greatest comebacks in history. Driven by love for his family, he willed an impossible dream to come true.
Never Back Down (Prime Video Add-On, Pluto TV & Tubi)
Synopse: Jake (Sean Faris) is the new kid in school. When a beautiful girl (Amber Heard) befriends him, Jake thinks he’s set. But instead, her fight-club boyfriend, Ryan (Cam Gigandet), smacks Jake a bloody, black-eyed welcome. Humiliated, Jake then turns to a mixed martial arts (MMA) master (Djimon Hounsou), who teaches him how to fight…and how to walk away. But it becomes obvious that a brutal re-match is inevitable if Jake wants to stop Ryan and his bullying, once and for all.
The Wrestler (Rent on Prime Video)
Synopse: Back in the late ’80s, Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) was a headlining professional wrestler. Now, twenty years later, he ekes out a living performing for handfuls of die-hard wrestling fans in high school gyms and community centers around New Jersey. Estranged from his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and unable to sustain any real relationships, Randy lives for the thrill of the show and the adoration of his fans. However, a heart attack forces him into retirement. As his sense of identity starts to slip away, he begins to evaluate the state of his life — trying to reconnect with his daughter, and strikes up a blossoming romance with an aging stripper (Marisa Tomei). Yet all this cannot compare to the allure of the ring and passion for his art, which threatens to pull Randy “The Ram” back into his world of wrestling.
Million Dollar Baby (Rent on Prime Video)
Synopse: Academy Award winners Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman star in this gritty drama of a veteran boxing trainer, his former boxing cohort–and the woman who strides into his gym and announces she intends to become a professional fighter, a Million Dollar Baby. Maggie Fitzgerald (Swank) has never had much, but she knows what she wants and she will do whatever it takes to get it. In a life of constant struggle, Maggie has gotten by on raw talent, unshakeable focus and a tremendous force of will–which persuade Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), against his better judgment, to train someone who’s both female and too old to begin a career. With Dunn’s experience and Fitzgerald’s talent and determination, the boxer finds herself on track to be the first female to win one million dollars in prize money. But the risks are high, the odds long and the ring unforgiving–as Dunn and Fitzgerald will discover–in this lacerating, knockdown drama.
Sultan (Prime Video)
Synopse: Sultan is a classic underdog tale about a wrestler’s journey, looking for a comeback by defeating all odds staked up against him. But when he has nothing to lose and everything to gain in this fight for his life match, he must literally fight for his life. Sultan believes he’s got what it takes, but this time, it’s going to take everything he’s got.
Forever Strong (Prime Video, Peacock, Pluto TV & Tubi)
Synopse: Sean Faris (Never Back Down) stars as Rick Penning who lives life just like he plays rugby; fast, hard-hitting and intense. When life on the edge lands him in jail, prison ward Marcus Tate, played by Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings, Rudy), offers him a chance to get back in the game by playing for his rival, Highland Rugby. Reluctantly Rick joins the team where he must adopt the grueling training schedule and unique code of conduct that Coach Gelwix, played by Gary Cole (Talladega Nights, Pineapple Express, Office Space) enforces, or finish out the season behind bars. Egos clash as bitter competitors struggle to become a team. An unlikely brotherhood is formed with his Highland teammates, just as Rick is released from jail and sent back home to rejoin his former team, coached by his overbearing father. Heading into a faceoff with Highland at the National Championship, Rick is forced to choose where his loyalty lies.
Embattled (AMC+ & Rent on Prime Video)
Synopse: Raised by an abusive father, Cash (Stephen Dorff) channels his aggression to become a World Champion MMA fighter. Now accustomed to wealth, adulation and global popularity, he faces a new challenge when his second son is born with Williams Syndrome. But this time, rather than stand and fight, he runs. While Cash continues to make his fortune in the ring, his eldest son Jett (Darren Mann) becomes the caregiver to his younger brother Quinn (Colin McKenna). When Jett decides to follow his father’s fighting footsteps and take to the fight game, he faces his past head on, embarking on a course inevitably pitting father versus son in a battle which, no matter the outcome, neither can win.
‘Rumble Through the Dark’ Is Two Hours of Savagery With Nothing New to Say
Aaron Eckhart, handsome and versatile leading man who has played everything from a corrupt tobacco lobbyist to tough Marines and sexy lovers in every kind of movie from Děkujeme, že kouříte na Erin Brokovich, is hell-bent on versatility. Many of his films have been poorly received by audiences and critics alike, but he has been personally praised in every role as relentlessly charming. There is nothing charming, appealing, or remotely memorable about a thing called Rumble Through the Dark. This one goes down in the Aaron Eckhart filmography as an ill-advised mistake. The only reason I can imagine why he was attracted to it was his persistent resistance to being labeled one of People magazine’s 100 most beautiful people.
RUMBLE THROUGH THE DARK ★ (1/4 hvězdičky)
Directed by: Graham and Parker Phillips
Written by: Michael Farris Smith
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Joe Hursley, Bella Thorne
Doba běhu: 116 min.
Nothing beautiful about the character Jack Boucher, a washed-up bare-knuckle fist fighter first shown as a child given away to an orphanage by his mother as the prelude to a life of misery and misfortune. In time, he morphs into a battered and decimated shell in such deplorable shape he can barely shuffle, much less walk, from one knockout to the next. Spitting blood with his head shaved down to a nub, he tries desperately to keep going long enough to support a terminally ill father until manhood. Losing his mind to dementia after so many fights, self-medicated with opioid painkillers and whiskey, Jack owes money for back taxes on his mother’s house and is in deep debt to the sleazy owner of an illegal fight club called Big Momma Sweet.
The $30,000 he wins on the roulette wheel in a lucky night at a local casino could save his mother from bank foreclosure and death in a nursing home, but a bounty hunter named Skelly (Joe Hursley) steals the money, hijacks his truck from a gas station, and leaves Jack beaten half to death and lying in a cornfield. In a film this dismal, where everyone is a hopeless loser, it’s Skelly who dies after a tattooed carnival fortune teller named Annette (a wasted Bella Thorne) steals Jack’s bankroll for herself. Feeling guilty because she secretly believes Jack might be her long-lost father (don’t ask!), she ponders the idea of giving it back, but before he can save his Mama’s house, he bets the money on one last caged fight to refund the money he owes Big Momma Sweet. The ape he fights makes Godzilla look like a nursery-school chimpanzee from Toys’R’Us. The sounds of bones crunching in the brutal bare-knuckle fight scenes are souped up to resemble the bombs that fell on Nagasaki.
Filmed in a bayou in Mississippi where, as we all know, there is always a depressingly glum traveling carnival and an extra roulette wheel handy, the preposterous Rumble Through the Dark is contrived and manipulative but not in any meaningful or significant way. The one-note screenplay is adapted by Michael Farris Smith from his novel “The Fighter,” which I never intend to read, and co-directed by brothers Graham and Parker Phillips. Living up to its title, the film is so dark you can’t see what is going on half the time, but it does raise two serious questions—why make it in the first place, and what could persuade an actor with Aaron Eckhart’s talent and reputation to appear in it? It doesn’t stretch his range, it stands the chance of a popsicle in hell to make money, and in the final analysis, nearly two hours of savagery add up to nothing new to say or write home about. One-word summary: Huh?
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