Boxing is a sport almost impossible to fake believably; the subtleties of in-fighting, for instance, or a short, solid shot to the jaw (like the one that felled Sonny Liston in real life) are lost on the big screen- despite the size of the "canvas." In RAGING BULL, director Martin Scorsese (applauded by critics upon the film's release) has Robert DeNiro as Jake Lamotta literally roaring like a dinosaur at one point- and, in some of the most amateurish filmmaking I've ever seen outside of a ROCKY movie, clinging to a strand of rope while being cinematically slain by "Sugar Ray Robinson," taunting him with: "You never knocked me down, Ray." A mere technicality, that: in Real Life, Lamotta was out on his feet when the referee rescued him, and, barely able to stand, was led back to his corner by his corner men. Which kinda sorta brings me to PHANTOM PUNCH. The book by Nick Tosches that may or may not have inspired this movie is so one-sided in its presentation of "the facts" that several facts are overlooked (or glossed over in passing): Muhammad Ali (who was NOT A SOUTHPAW, as depicted in this alleged Motion Picture) DID, in fact, drop Liston with a short, jolting right to the jaw in their second fight. In fact, the very first punch he landed in the rematch was just such a short, jolting right to the jaw- a punch the crouching Liston proved susceptible to in both fights. Boxing writer Jimmy Cannon is said to have made this observation: "I saw the punch land, and it couldn't have squashed a grape." Oh, yeah? Tell that to Cleveland Williams, who ran into that selfsame right in the second round of his fight with Ali: the punch dropped him in his tracks. Many of Ali's many fans refer to the Williams fight as his finest performance- and yet NO ONE has ever suggested that the same short, jolting right that dropped Williams for the first of four knockdowns was a "phantom punch." That this movie would even perpetuate such a myth speaks volumes. Against former middleweight Floyd Patterson, Liston looked awesome; against bigger and better opponents, not so much. Eddie Machen, who was stopped by Joe Frazier, went the distance with Liston. And, like Cleveland Williams, he complained of ointment of some kind getting in his eyes during the fight. In his first fight with Ali, Liston can actually be seen extending his arm to place his glove against Ali's cheek and then WIPING it across Ali's face. One need only go back and look at the fight: the proof of something unsavory going on is THERE. Ving Rhames, so good as "Mike Tyson" in UNDISPUTED, is wasted here: PHANTOM PUNCH is so badly written and directed that it wouldn't pass muster as a TV movie (which is saying a lot: I remember cringing when, as a kid, I saw a TV movie with Erik Estrada playing-acting as a boxer: at one point, he tells someone that there are "five punches in boxing"). I've been on the receiving end of a beating at least once in my life (to a three-time Golden Gloves champion), so I find the kind of misinformation in movies like this nigh intolerable. Muhammad Ali was NOT a southpaw.
Review of Phantom Punch
