Movie gives Hartnett grown-up material

The film asks big questions about journalism ethics.

By ROBERT W. BUTLER

KANSAS CITY STAR

A struggling newspaperman befriends a homeless former prizefighter. Together they change each other’s lives.

Oh Lord, deliver us from inspirational sports movies.

Except that “Resurrecting the Champ” pulls a switcheroo. Director Rod Lurie (“The Contender”) and screenwriters Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett have fashioned a sneaky drama that sets us up for bland clichés and instead veers into big questions of ethics and exploitation.

What’s more, the film finds Josh Hartnett hanging up his trademark abused-beagle imitation and sinking his teeth into some real grown-up material.

Eric Kernan (Hartnett), a sportswriter for a Denver paper, is floundering. The son of a late, great ringside radio commentator, Eric has a hard time living up to his father’s reputation. His editor (Alan Alda) complains that Eric’s copy about local boxing matches is so impersonal it’s more like typing than writing.

Meanwhile Eric is separated from his wife (Kathryn Morris) and cherishes every moment he can spend with his adoring (and adorable) young son (Dakota Goyo). The kid has grown up thinking his dad is a close friend of sports luminaries like John Elway (who makes a brief appearance) and Eric — gratified that someone believes in him — hasn’t disabused the boy of that erroneous notion.

What happens

One night Eric witnesses a bum being beaten by a group of young toughs. He intervenes and discovers that this semi-punch-drunk old geezer (Samuel L. Jackson) is Bob “Champ” Satterfield, who in the 1950s was the third-ranked heavyweight in the world. In his prime Champ fought LaMotta and Marciano. Now he sleeps in an alley and dines from dumpsters.

Eric senses that Champ — a font of homespun wisdom who appears content with life on the streets — could be his ticket to big-time journalism. Making an end run around his editor, he peddles Champ’s story to his paper’s Sunday magazine.

It’s an instant sensation, picked up by papers all over the country and landing Eric a cable network offer to do commentary for boxing events.

Different angle

And then ... well, let’s just say that Eric finds himself living a reporter’s worst nightmare. The second half of “Resurrecting the Champ” isn’t about sports. It’s about careerism and betrayal and violating the codes of your profession. And if you look back at the first half of the film with what you’ve learned, you’ll see that all along Eric was setting himself up for a fall.

Lurie was a movie critic before he began making films, and here he gives us one of the more accurate film depictions of life in a newsroom.

Hartnett is solid as a man who has made cutting corners and telling little lies a way of life. Jackson, practically hidden behind tangled dreadlocks and wrinkly makeup, gives a mesmerizing performance as Champ, who is both more and less than he appears to be. And look for Peter Coyote, virtually unrecognizable in a late-act appearance as an old Jewish boxing manager.

“Resurrecting the Champ” wraps things up a bit too neatly, but at least it’s about something that matters.