When I was a teenager living in Memphis, TN, I remember browsing my local Blockbuster Video Store. (RIP, Blockbuster). I stumbled across a movie called Rocky Marciano. Being a boxing fan, I was immediately intrigued. In case you're unaware, Rocky Marciano retired with a record of 49-0 with 43 wins by knockout. At the time, I knew almost nothing about Marciano other than the fact that he retired undefeated and, according to Eddie Murphy, beat up Joe Louis when he was 175 years old.

I rented the film but I wondered how a movie like this would work. We know Rocky never lost a fight, so what would be the conflict? How do you make a movie where everyone already knows the ending? Turns out, Director Charles Winkler did a great job spinning around this issue, and the film became my favorite boxing movie to date. 

We meet 10 year-old Rocky Marciano during the Great Depression when everyone was pissed off and money was scarce. His father (played by the late George C. Scott in one of his final roles) was a miserable Italian immigrant working at a Stacy Adams shoe factory. In the meantime, Rocky discovered a love of boxing. His hero was the great Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion at that time. We witness young Rocky hanging up a picture of Louis in his bedroom and celebrating with the locals on the legendary night when Louis knocked out Germany's Max Schmeling in one round.

As an adult, Rocky (Jon Favreau) had enough of work in the shoe factory and, reviving his love of boxing, decides to get involved in amateur boxing where he quickly suffers humiliating losses to Golden Gloves Champion Henry Lester and four other contenders. Ignoring the pleading of his best friend Allie Colombo, (Rino Romano) Rocky decides to turn professional. His strategy of training harder than his opponents sounded ridiculous at first, but his conditioning and hard-hitting style allowed him to win his first 12 fights by knockout. By the middle of the movie, he's already gone 25-0 against the best boxers in the world.

Around this time is where the problems begin to pile up, and boy did Rocky have a lot of problems on his plate! First, he meets a well-connected manager named Al Weill. Al may be good at booking fights, but he talks Rocky into signing a contract where he receives half of Rocky's earnings for the rest of his life. This begins a long flow of money problems Rocky faces throughout the movie. Next, Rocky nearly quits boxing when he literally punches the undefeated 6'4 Carmine Vingo into a coma. Vingo recovered and is paralyzed today, but the incident had a bad effect on Rocky. Around the same time, he asks his girlfriend Barbara Cousins (Penelope Ann Miller) to marry him and she turns him down. Damn.

Eventually she comes around, but Rocky is hit with tough news at their wedding when Al Weill announces that Rocky will have to fight his hero, The Brown Bomber Joe Louis!

This is the real conflict of the movie. Rocky loved Joe Louis. No, I mean, he really loved the guy. Everytime Louis was in Rocky's presence, he walked in slow motion and appeared to float. He was Rocky's hero since childhood. Louis defended the heavyweight title 25 times and was champ for almost 13 years. But he was forced out of retirement because of tax problems. Even though he was past his prime, he was still regarded by most in the film as "the greatest boxer who ever lived" and few gave Rocky a chance at beating him.

However, beating Joe Louis was the only way Marciano could get a shot at the heavyweight title and have enough money to rescue his father from that "damn shoe factory," as he put it. The money would also put Rocky in a better position to get away from the greedy Al Weill and the other gangsters lurking around.

Even though it's not entirely accurate, a lot of things were done right here. For starters, I like the way Favreau played Marciano. He gave him a bit of cool cockiness that made him likeable. He's someone you could easily be friends with and you want to see him succeed.

Secondly, Favreau and Duane Davis (who played Joe Louis) really did their homework on the fighting styles of the characters they played. Favreau did a great job mimicking Rocky's bobbing and weaving style, while Davis looked great portraying Louis' flat footed, boxer-puncher techniques, right down to crushing jab and swift, hard combinations Louis would throw. In the end, the climactic fight between the two was really well done and an excellent representation of the real battle between Louis and Marciano. To sum it up, Louis controlled the fight early with his jab, but Marciano's constant pressure and body attacks wore him out as the rounds progressed. Marciano floored Louis with a hard left hook in the 8th round and finished him moments later by knocking him through the ropes with a devastating right to the jaw.

Many friends of Rocky will tell you that he was a bit weird when it came to money. He only took cash, and hid money in odd places. The movie explains early on how The Great Depression effected Rocky during his childhood. After growing up poor, he made sure to save every penny he had. He didn't trust banks or checks. Only cash.

The film paid close attention to history, particularly in scenes like the one when Rocky was training for the Louis fight. Along with Allie and trainer Charley Goldman (Aron Tager) Marciano watches Louis' fights with Schmeling, looking for any potential weaknesses in The Brown Bomber.  Goldman points out that Louis drops his left hand, leaving him wide open for the overhand right. This shows the trio came up with Marciano's fight plan for Louis - kill the body and the head will die. In other words, hit Louis so much in the ribs and stomach that when he drops his hands to protect the body, smash him with a knockout blow upstairs. The strategy worked. Watching this is like being a fly on the wall in a real training camp. 

To me, the film landed all the right blows for a boxing movie. You care about the characters, the fight scenes were excellent, the acting was good, etc. Plus it's nice to see something done on a heavyweight champion whose last name isn't Ali or Tyson. No offense to those two, but other boxing legends are lost in their shadows and Marciano is one of them. In addition, Marciano is one of my favorite heavyweight champions of all time. In his prime he was exactly my size. (5'10, 184 pounds, although my long dreads may be extra weight). In boxing, my favorite boxers are the little guys with a big punch. Rocky had freakish punching power for someone so undersized, something else explored in the film. 

Also, in a time of racial tension in this country, Marciano was not a racist man. The film goes out of its way to show this several times, among them being scenes showing Marciano's respect for Louis, and the fact that he attacked a reporter who made a racist remark about Louis. Because of this, I respect Rocky as both a boxer and as a man. Also, if you pay attention, you'll notice that actor Tony Lo Bianco (who plays gangster Frankie Carbo in this movie) played Rocky Marciano in another Marciano biopic during the 1970s. But every movie has cons and sure enough, this one is no exception.

Only three things bother me about Rocky Marciano. One is the constant flashbacks. It starts to give you a headache after a while, especially when they arrive without warning. One minute Rocky is balding and happily retired. The next he's a young contender struggling with a corrupt manager and knocking people out. 

Second, the movie somewhat ignores Louis' age when he fought Marciano. Remember that in the beginning of the story, Rocky is a small boy celebrating a Louis victory. And as an adult, 13 years later, he's fighting the man! But strangely, no one really mentions Louis' age and everyone acts like the fight is prime versus prime. I understand at the time that Louis' legacy was already intact and Rocky was still a prospect, but the movie's writers basically ignored Louis' age. The producers should have given the Louis character a bald spot or gray hair or something to show that he was much older than Rocky.

Lastly, (and most important) the movie stopped too early in Rocky's career. The film ends just after his victory over Joe Louis, therefore we don't get to see his tough fight against Jersey Joe Walcott for the heavyweight title, or the battles with Ezzard Charles and Archie Moore. Those fights were classics and would have been great to see. I understand that the movie would have to be a miniseries to include those highlights, but it would have been worth it, in my opinion. The producers did such a great job with the fight scenes that I know they would have done Marciano's later fights justice.

Other than those three minor quibbles, this film is great! HBO also scored a knockout with their 1995 movie, Tyson, which featured some of the cast from this film. That movie was awesome as well, but the Marciano movie edges it out a little, possibly because Mike Tyson's story has been told countless times.

As far as Rocky Marciano goes, I definitely recommend this movie. Even if you're not a fan of boxing, I think you'll like this one. Great storytelling, and my favorite boxing biopic of them all.

**** 1/2
 Four and a half stars out of 5

Listen to my interview with Rocky Marciano biographer John Cameron.

See what Joe Louis himself had to say about his brawl with The Brockton Blockbuster. (Scans taken from Joe Louis' autobiography, My Life).

Disclaimer: There will be spoilers here. 

Every once in a while when you cruise the movies streaming on Netflix, you'll find a real diamond in the rough. Yesterday I read the synopsis for a movie about a maniac that slaughters teens, and I saw that Horror Legend Tony Todd had a role. Well, I'm a fan of slashers of it's done right, and after seeing that Candyman himself was involved, I was sold.

This was the first movie directed by Kimberly Seilhamer. She also wrote the screenplay. You can tell that she's a real horror fan as the movie flows. She kept things interesting and you never quite know what to expect. In the end, the movie is a cross between The Breakfast Club, Friday The 13th and Final Destination. I know that's a random collection of movies to compare it to, but I'll explain things later in the review.

Jack The Reaper is about a group of high school kids forced to go on a boring field trip on a Saturday morning to make up for a missed assignment. Needless to say, the kids are more than pissed at their teacher, Mr. Smith. (David Beeler). The movie got points for grabbing my attention early with backstories for the teenagers, making me care about some of them. One girl, Jesse, is getting molested by her father. Another student, Shawn, is about to be a father but wants nothing to do with the situation, so his pregnant girlfriend breaks up with him.  Shawn's brother, Steven, is the arrogant jock character of the crew. Steven's best friend is a cocky but level-headed African American teenager named Andre.  

There's also an annoying fat nerd with a high whiny voice named Harold. (Harold's  grandmother is played by Sally Kirkland. She gives her grandson some great advice but the way she does it is hilarious! As was the case with Tony Todd, I wish Sally had more screen time).  There is a rich Asian girl named Trudy Yoo, and a misunderstood Albino kid everyone calls "Casper" because of his pale complexion. Rounding things out is a weird Emo black guy named  Tyler, the token slut character named Sommer, and her deaf cousin Maya. I was really surprised to see a deaf character. That was something new. It was also interesting to discover that the actress who played Maya, (Amber Zion) is deaf in real life. 

Therein lies the similarity to The Breakfast Club - kids with different problems forced together by circumstance. Though eventually they encounter the same problem....

The students encounter Tony Todd at the museum they visit. He plays a character named Mr. Steele, who quickly goes into a long dialogue about how they're all going to die and there's nothing they can do about it. To be honest, his monologue sounds like lines that could have been rejected from one of his Final Destination speeches. But I like it anyway.

He spooks out Shawn with his story of Railroad Jack, (Douglas Tait) a ghastly figure who haunts the local railroad. According to Steele, once you meet eyes with good ole' Jack, your fate is sealed. Before  Shawn departs, Steele tells him that he'll see him soon. 

I'm a big Tony Todd fan, but I get the feeling that he's becoming typecast. Don't get me wrong. He does a great job playing these unsettling characters obsessed with death. But it looks like he's "boxing himself in." Yes, pun intended.

Every time I see Will Smith in a movie, I'm expecting an alien to show up somewhere. If I see Adam West, I expect a Bat Signal. If I see Chris Tucker, then I'm waiting on Jackie Chan to pop up somewhere. Now whenever I see Tony Todd, I know he's gonna play some  weirdo who likes to tease people about their upcoming deaths. Not a bad thing but I've seen it before. In any case, it seems like Tony showed up one day on set, did his part, collected his check, and that was that. 

Jesse saw Railroad Jack on the way to the museum and spots him again on the way back. The driver sees him also and swerves to miss him, crashing the bus. The teenagers wake up with cuts and bruises but the teacher and bus driver are nowhere in sight. The panicked teens can't call anyone because their cell phones have no service. Meanwhile, they notice a carnival nearby.  With the exception of Jesse, all of them decide to go have some fun, though they regret it later.

Strangely, there's no one else at the carnival. No cars either. Even the guy sitting in the  admission booth is a wax dummy. But the kids don't mind. They take advantage of riding all the free rides. That is, until they start getting killed off one by one by a guy who looks like a pissed off mutated Elmer Fudd....it's Railroad Jack!!!!

* The kids are being killed by a tall, imposing supernatural killing machine. There are indeed similarities between Jack and Jason, but Jack isn't a copycat. While Jason Voorhees shows no personality, Railroad Jack clearly loves his job, often smiling as he commits his murders. Railroad Jack can be outsmarted or briefly hurt by attacks, though he recovers quickly.  (Jason Voorhees was the same way in all of his movies until Jason Lives, where he became a supernatural threat after being struck by lightning). 

Unlike slow-moving killers like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, Railroad Jack will chase you down if necessary. He's not as patient as his counterparts. Railroad Jack stands out because of his black eyes, gross teeth and weapon of choice - the pick-axe. Another cool touch is this... every time Railroad Jack kills someone, the Ferris Wheel turns bright red to signal the bloodshed. 

*This is frustrating. Just when you start to care about the kids and their relationships with each other, they die. I can't count the many Friday The 13th situations where it would look as if Girl A was about to change her mind about Guy C and give him a chance, but they both get murdered before anything could take place, giving you no closure. There are a few examples of that in Jack The Reaper.

One example is when Sommer, the whore of the bunch, turns down goofy Harold for a kiss. When she says, "Eww" and tells him that she's not attracted to him, Harold remembers his feisty grandmother's advice and tells her off, explaining that she's attracted to "everyone else" and all he wanted was a kiss. You go boy!

It seemed his words hit their mark, as Sommer appears to re-access him. But before anything else can happen, they're killed. Likewise, Shawn seemed to strike up quite a connection with Maya. Despite being deaf, she seemed to understand and like him, especially since Shawn decided to make things work with his pregnant girlfriend. Just when the two start to bond, our friend Railroad Jack steps in to slaughter them both. Damnit!!!  

In case you're still not following me, here's another example. Remember the episode of Saved By The Bell when Kelly famously broke up with Zack for that much older pedophile college guy named Jeff? Well, what if Jason Voorhees or Railroad Jack suddenly appeared and killed all three of them before anything else could happen? You'd feel pissed! There's no closure! The abrupt endings to these romantic situations in teen slashers really bug me.

*At one point, the creepy female narrator tells Railroad Jack to "Kill them, my child." I've heard Pamela Voorhees tell Jason those same words.

NOTE: Unlike the Friday The 13th films, there's no nudity or sex scenes in Jack The Reaper :(

Back to the story. It turns out in the end that all of the students (except Jesse) died in the bus crash and Railroad Jack was helping them cross over into death one by one. Hence the name, Jack The Reaper. Apparently, he used his carnival to lure them in. Once they left the bus and crossed his railroad, they were goners. One hint of the ending is the fact that the teens could not escape the carnival once they entered. The involvement of Tony Todd and the fact that the kids couldn't escape death is the link to Final Destination.

Though Jesse survived the bus accident because she never left the bus for the carnival, it is implied that she is about to die in the ambulance as Railroad Jack is the paramedic driving her. Then the end credits start. 

Great slasher film and a bit different. It got my attention early on by explaining the characters as they arrived at school one by one. I wish all movies could have quick character development like that. Also, Douglas Tait did a great job as Railroad Jack. He was sinister and creepy. He also served as a stunt double for Jason Voorhees in Freddy versus Jason. Ha! Another Jason reference.

There are a few cons. One is that it took a little too long for the characters to start dying. Disregarding the couple in the opening scene, we don't see our first kill until nearly an hour into the movie. Too much time was spent watching the teens have fun at the carnival. All the while, we know that someone is watching them. What the hell took Railroad Jack so long to make an appearance? Was he masturbating somewhere? Was he watching cartoons or having a beer? Was he watching my music video? Must have been. I don't see any other reason why a supernatural killer would sit back for so long and bide his time.

Secondly, what's up with the narrator lady with the creepy voice? She started speaking at the most random times and I don't see how she fits into the story. Also, it's obvious that there are two Railroad Jacks. One was taking care of the teens in the carnival and the other was harassing Jesse on the bus. Later he put on a cowboy hat and rode around on a horse. This left me with more questions than answers. If Jesse saw Railroad Jack first, why didn't she die first? And can we confirm that she died after the credits? If anyone knows the answer please let me know.

While I think the ending was good overall, it immediately squashes any chance of a sequel because we know that since Railroad Jack is the grim reaper, you see him around only when you're dying. With a little more publicity Railroad Jack could become something of a horror icon. But because the audience knows you only see him when you're near death, I'm not quite sure how that would work in sequels. But it worked nicely as a twist ending here.

Great film overall. I like horror movies with imagination like this one. I recommend seeing it because it's far from being "another dumb teen slasher." There was some serious thought put into this one. And, in some ways, this movie was a throwback to the good old-fashioned monster movie. I appreciate movies like this one and Jeepers Creepers for that very reason. 

Before the ending, we don't know much about Railroad Jack other than the small info Mr. Steele provided in his lecture. We don't know where he came from, or why he's killing everyone. We don't even know what powers he possesses. The movie takes you on a fun ride and gets my respect for its use of imagination and taking a different approach to making monster/slasher films.

**** 4 stars out of 5.

                                                     Check out the film trailer.

2/19/2014 Update: After watching the film again today, I caught several things that answered some of my original questions. These 'hidden' revelations make the movie even better. First, take a look at this.

Damnit!! Son of a biscuit eater! Railroad Jack read my review and took down my address. Time to change my name to Nasdaq Mustafa James and move to Samoa or somewhere.

(Photo Courtesy of Jack The Reaper's Facebook Page)

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