Girlfight

Rating:
Summary: Slow but well acted film.
Review: I had seen some very good reviews for Girlfight. I had also thought I had seen some stuff saying it was a female version of Rocky. Well it is not exciting like Rocky was but it was well acted.

Girlfight was not a very exciting movie. The fights were not that good and there were not many of them. However all the people in the film did a really great job. The film had some great acting.

However the film was a bit too slow for me.

Also, I feel the film which is set in Brooklyn lacked a NY feel. I recently saw Finding Forrester, which really captured the Bronx. Woody Allen always captures NY. This film, though set in Brooklyn, to me did not feel NY.

I do not recommend buying the DVD. The film will be watched once and I really do not think watched again. Also the extra making of footage was really just a 5 minute commercial. There are no real cool extras on the disk. Michelle Rodriguez the star, was really really good and I hope goes far in movies.

This is a good DVD to rent once and watch, it is not one I recommend owning and watching more than once.

Rating:
Summary: Yawn . . .
Review: I really wanted to like this movie. I heard lots of good reviews about it and expected nothing but good.

10 minutes into the movie, I could see that Michell Rodriquez was a pretty girl, but not a great actress. She acts and sounds like your average schmo on the street who's reading a script in monotone.

The story itself could've been edited. Sometimes I completely lapsed out, it was so slow. ANd how predictable. OF course Diana was gonna meet a good-looking fellow boxer, fall in love with him, then when a big fight in the end.

A movie about an angry girl who does good is an interesting idea, but sorry to say, Karyn Kusama did not try hard enough.

I'm Asian, but that doesn't mean I'm going to lie and say I think Karyn made a good film.

Rating:
Summary: Hubby Sneering At First and Then Absolutely Loves It!
Review: Yes, he started out viewing this movie thinking it was going to be really dumb but quickly changed his mind. There is just something uplifting about seeing a young woman, who is in a rough neighborhood with rough relatives and rough peers, handle it all by learning literally how to be the best fighter she can possibly be. She trains to be a professional boxer. She even gets to box her boyfriend in the ring, who also wants to go pro. We were both laughing during this part because actually it probably would be a tremendous help to marriage and relationships to pick someone you could literally go into the ring against and beat the hell out of them (professionally speaking, of course). This sure would be one marriage or relationship where abuse of one party would have a hard time arising! This shared the jury award at Sundance and also won its (female) director and the drama itself awards. We also liked the real way this girl was allowed to look without turning her into some unbelievable starlet type.

Rating:
Summary: the best movie ever
Review: GirlFight is the best movie i ever saw I hope you make another one because I want to see it again can u put Santiago Douglas in it let him be adrian again he was good they were all good in the movie if u have any parts open i would like it if u put me in the movie use all the people in the regular movie then make alot of movies of girlfight cause it was good I like the part when santiagoDouglas fights that girl diana and she wins he gets mad at her santiago is a good actor in this movie please make another movie please

Rating:
Summary: A COMING OF AGE TALE...
Review: Living with her brother, and loser father, Bronx girl Diana Guzman (Michelle Rodriguez), lashes out with anger to everyone she meets.

While visiting her brother at his practice in a boxing gym, Diana, realizes the best outlet for her frustrations will be boxing.

Being the only girl in an all male boxing gym, Diana, has to deal with prejudice, as well as hostility with the fellow boxers, and although being completely focused on being a contender, Diana, opens up her heart to Adrian (Santiago Douglas), a featherweight looking to make it as a professional boxer.

Before long, the two are dealing with the problems each has kept bottled-up, and falling in love. But as luck would have it, Diana, and Adrian are put in a situation that may rip them apart.

"Girlfight" is a good movie, if a little over-rated. The performances of Michelle Rodriguez, and Santiago Douglas are strong, and the romance between the two is interesting enough to carry the whole movie, but what could have been a great coming-of-age tale, becomes somewhat boring as too much time is spent on boxing, and not enough time developing Diana's stormy past, and the relationship of the young couple. This could have been an excellent film, but as it stands it's watchable for the performance's of the two young stars, and the surprise at the end is suspenseful enough to bring about the satisfying climax.

Nick Gonnella

Rating:
Summary: Don't Let Any Girl Fight You Out Of Seeing This Movie!
Review: When her father refuses to let her train as a boxer, a teenage girl (Rodriguez) takes up the "sweet science" herself, soon becoming the first female champion at her local gym. Things get confusing however, when she finds herself softening up as she falls in love with one of her competitors.

Rating:
Summary: Girlfight talks about new issues.
Review: I was disappointed that Girlfight left our city before I got back to see it again. I think the movie exposes new views of female rage and offers a chance to think about these issues that most people don't want to or can't think about. I love the soundtrack and listen to it regularly while I do my aerobics. Good movie - it gives a person a lot to think about in a very simple way.

Rating:
Summary: Girlfight Is a Winner
Review: When I watched Girlfight, I felt like I was watching my first movie ever. Not only is it a great movie, but it gives you this feeling in your stomach of pure joy. It made me so happy that I immediatly wanted to see it again. If you are a human being and are living, you will love Girlfight,

Rating:
Summary: Simple-Minded Movie for a Dumbed-Down Art-House
Review: In this simple-minded, nearly elemental Latin melodrama, we meet Diana (Michelle Rodriguez), a feisty, angry young woman who soon discovers boxing and, presumably, a new sense of self-worth. Written and directed by first-timer, Karyn Kusama, "Girlfight" means well, but it's also clumsy in execution, politically transparent and consistently cliché-ridden.

The film is arrives with a Sundance Film Festival pedigree, along with nearly bludgeoning insistence from many in the press that it should be supported since it illuminates "important" issues about Latin culture, feminism, Latin machismo, amongst other "urgent" topics. But why should Latin audiences, or feminists for that matter, accept mere crumbs? "Girlfight's" good intentions notwithstanding, the film itself is seldom more complex or involving then any given Afterschool Special.

Directing from her own screenplay (which was surely written in crayon), Kusama doesn't create a character with Diana, she creates a symbol; Diana is "angry young girl," and that's about it. She's also a girl who needs an outlet, and she finds it in boxing after accompanying her brother, Sandro (Paul Calderon), to his boxing lessons. Naturally, every man present in this film objects to Diana's interest in boxing, despite the fact that she all but lays a boxer flat her very first time at the club.

Diana also falls in love with Adrian (Santiago Douglas), a handsome young boxer who adores Diana, claims to understands her "rage," though he'd prefer she give up boxing. It doesn't take a soothsayer to predict that these two will soon end up in the ring together.

If Kusama had bothered to look at her characters as people instead of empty vessels carrying "important ideas," then "Girlfight" might have sprung to life. The actors, all of whom display at least burgeoning talent, seem hamstrung by a story that's out to score points instead of creating drama. They include Michelle Rodriguez as Diana, a first-time feature actress who makes a forceful impression despite the script's limitations, along with Santiago Douglas as Adrian, who has the near impossible task of playing Diana's boyfriend as both an "understanding man" and one caught up in traditional "machismo" - which is a little like requiring an actress in this day and age to balance the old Madonna-whore complex. In this instance, "Girlfight" believes it's awfully clever and smart and politically-correct simply by reversing traditional sexual roles, but you have to do more then that to create an involving melodrama.

It's depressing that many art-house audiences fall for explicit, machine-tooled, commercialized social consciousness - which is basically all "Girlfight" is. They feel awfully good afterwards, not because they've seen a decent movie, but because they've had their own middle-class liberal sensitivities confirmed. You can almost hear the non-Latin art-house audience muttering, "Ah, yes, now I understand Latin culture."

Rating:
Summary: A Solid Knock-Out
Review: This is NOT just another boxing movie. Michelle Rodriguez has got more great boxing moves and looks then "Raging Bull" and all of the "Rocky" movies combined! AND, she's a phenomenal actress! There hasn't been a sports movie this good since "Jerry Maguire"! Definately look for more movies from this girl!