James Woods versus Bruce Dern was a pretty good casting call for this picture. Both effectively convey the type of smarmy characters that one usually finds behind the scenes of boxing fixes in movies dealing with the subject. As far as con jobs go, this isn't in the same league as "The Sting", but it still has it's moments with twists and trip-ups along the way that momentarily derail, but never stop Gabriel Caine (Woods) from pulling off that final win against John Gillon's (Dern) ringer.
The one disconnect I had with the story line was when Gillon left ringside to confront the Busby Brothers about their payoff. I went back and checked out the scenes leading up to it and couldn't find anything that would have tipped Gillon off to the double cross. The ruse with Gillon forcing his son Robby to walk out of the fight was a neat twist to rig the count on how many men faced off against Honey Roy Palmer (Louis Gossett Jr.). Caine and Honey Roy had some fun working that black motivation thing, it came in handy against the Tank (Jeff Benson) and offered a neat wind up to the story.
There's probably any number of interpretations one can offer for the resolution to the story. I guess the best one can go with would be Caine's ability to operate a few steps ahead of his opponent, figuring that Minoso Torres (Alex Garcia) would wind up heading for Diggstown when he got his prison release. Dern's character gave a sneak preview of how the tables would be turned on him when he gave a thumbs down to his boy Buck (Rocky Pepelli) earlier in the film.
The one disconnect I had with the story line was when Gillon left ringside to confront the Busby Brothers about their payoff. I went back and checked out the scenes leading up to it and couldn't find anything that would have tipped Gillon off to the double cross. The ruse with Gillon forcing his son Robby to walk out of the fight was a neat twist to rig the count on how many men faced off against Honey Roy Palmer (Louis Gossett Jr.). Caine and Honey Roy had some fun working that black motivation thing, it came in handy against the Tank (Jeff Benson) and offered a neat wind up to the story.
There's probably any number of interpretations one can offer for the resolution to the story. I guess the best one can go with would be Caine's ability to operate a few steps ahead of his opponent, figuring that Minoso Torres (Alex Garcia) would wind up heading for Diggstown when he got his prison release. Dern's character gave a sneak preview of how the tables would be turned on him when he gave a thumbs down to his boy Buck (Rocky Pepelli) earlier in the film.