Send us a text A fighter who can break you in the ring but apologizes with his eyes—this is the paradox that hooked us. We went in expecting swagger, exits through flames, and the usual invincible sheen. What we found instead was Dwayne Johnson letting go of “The Rock” and stepping into Mark Kerr with bruised grace, while Emily Blunt turns every shared scene into a live wire. The fights snap, sure, but the quiet beats are louder: the held breath before a bad decision, the shame that keeps secrets alive, and the kind of friendship that refuses to fracture just to give the plot a twist. We dig into the gendered crossfire at the story’s heart: how many men are taught to love by building careers, and how many women ask for presence over provision. The movie lingers in that gap, and we sit in the discomfort with it. Anger simmers but doesn’t detonate where you expect; the violence turns inward, and that choice feels painfully real. Mark Coleman’s portrayal becomes the rare on-screen constant—no jealous heel turn, no betrayal—just loyalty with boundaries, the kind of anchor that gives recovery a chance. That sincerity helps the film dodge cliché and keeps the emotional stakes honest. Then there’s the ending—anticlimactic, maybe even jarring. We wrestle with it. Is that a flaw, or the truest note a biopic can hit? Redemption rarely sticks its landings on cue, and postscript text can bruise a perfect arc. Still, what stays with us is the craft: documentary textures, long takes that force the question to bloom, and two leads who create a pressure cooker without a punch thrown. Call it a sports biopic if you want, but we felt a relationship drama with gloves on. If you’re drawn to performance-driven stories, complicated love, and a sports film that cares more about the person than the trophy, queue this one up. And if you’ve seen it, we want your take—does that final note work for you, or does it undercut the climb? Follow, share, and leave a review to keep the conversation going. Support the show
