Director Ben Younger debuted in 2000 with Boiler Room, a tart drama set at a brokerage firm and powered along by the unbridled machismo of that dubious sector. Bleed for This could easily play on a double bill with that earlier film. The true, incredible story of Vincent Pazienza, aka Vinny Paz, aka PazMania, is a compelling portrait of punctured masculinity.
Pazienza, an Italian-American boxer from Rhode Island scored a string of wins – at lightweight, light middleweight and super middleweight – under the guidance of Mike Tyson’s old trainer, Kevin Rooney. In 1991, he broke his neck and injured his spine in a car accident. Doctors told him that he might not walk again, let alone fight: Vinny, however, had other ideas.
It sounds awfully familiar. Miles Teller is the arrogant boxer brought low. Aaron Eckhart is the coach that won't give up. Katey Sagal – no better woman – is the mom who'll kill both of them if she finds out Vinny is training again. Reprising the swagger he brought to Whiplash, a bulked-up Teller leads a terrific ensemble – plus the ever-marvellous Ciarán Hinds as Vinny's father-manager – that allows Bleed for This to rise above its unavoidable sporting comeback clichés. DOP Larkin Seiple's occasionally unorthodox compositions add further novelty.
That said, this Martin Scorsese-produced boxing movie can't entirely escape genre precedent: loud blue-collar exchanges recall David O Russell's similarly themed The Fighter; the big, climactic final match between Vinny and Roberto Duran is inescapably Rocky-ish.
There is, nonetheless, something intriguing in Younger and Teller’s understanding of the film’s hero. An all-round addict who frequents sleazy strip clubs and gambling dens, Vinny’s rage against impossible odds is both admirable and utterly crazed. Have you ever seen a man with a circular metal brace screwed into his skull pumping iron before? Maybe that’s because that shouldn’t happen.
