The boxing film is a beloved warhorse that has amused fans of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, inspired gym bunnies with next-level training montages, and birthed technical innovations, from the Soviet-cribbed montage of Raging Bull to the one-take immediacy of Creed. Women’s boxing, too, has been a cinematic staple since 1901, when Thomas Edison captured the Gordon sisters boxing in a short silent film.
Claressa “T-Rex” Shields is an American professional boxer and mixed martial artist who is widely regarded as one of the greatest female boxers ever. Born in 1995, she is a double Olympic gold medallist (2012 and 2016) and the first boxer, male or female, to hold all four major world titles across two weight classes simultaneously.
She deserves a fine biopic. On paper, at least, The Fire Inside promises a classic of the genre.
Written by Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning director of Moonlight, and directed by Rachel Morrison (the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for best cinematography), the film chronicles Shields’s journey from a budding pugilist who is told “We don’t train no girls” at her local boxing club to an undefeated Olympic champion who can’t attract sponsorship or make ends meet.
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Her fellow Michigander Ryan Destiny brings form to the central role; the film’s cinematographer, the Taylor Swift collaborator Rina Yang, finds classic lines; and Brian Tyree Henry (replacing Ice Cube after a troubled production history) is gruffly charming.
The Fire Inside has enough quality to please genre and sports enthusiasts even if it feels like an undercard fixture. For all the talent on both sides of the camera, the nuts-and-bolts script lacks innovation and the pacing neither bobs nor weaves.
