The Main Event

So I have to say on 1st glance, I’m not that0 impressed with what I see coming from this movie. Barbra Streisand is funny in it and Ryan O’ Neil is a great straight man for her, but I feel like I’m seeing it in a time frame where the battle of the sexiest this movie is conceived in is not standing the test of time for me.

One of the reasons why I wanted to see this movie is because it made some list (I’m thinking an IMDB list) as one of the best boxing movies made, or possible highest grossing, which would make more sense. This is no where near the best boxing movie I’ve ever seen, but I’m sure it was a box office smash because of Babs. Babs plays the kind of strong independent business woman that’s still relevant today, except when it comes to the business of boxing. See what happens is Babs who plays Hillary has her money stolen by her lawyer and in order to keep her head above water she discovers that she owns a boxer’s contract and she gets this guy in shape to be a contender in order to make money. The comedy comes from the fact that this boxer The Kid, played by O’Neil does not want to be a boxer anymore and tries to scare her away.

Babs’ tone is to tackle this like a slapstick comedy with a lot of zinging one-liners that shows me only one thing: women don’t belong in boxing. I don’t actually believe this but everything about the movie states this is true, and it’s unfortunate that this truth is soooo freaking funny. I seen movies from the 70s before and they all have sexist elements to them, but I think my problem is that I was excepting more from a movie starring Babs that she produced. I think I was expecting her to become the greatest boxing manager the world has ever known, most likely because I was under the impression that this was going to be a great boxing movie, but the Main Event the title is referring to is totally about the battle of the sexist represented by Babs and O’Neil and has nothing really to do with boxing, so I was real disappointed that the girl she was at the beginning of the movie was the girl she was at the end of the flick.

Even more disappointing was Ryan O’ Neil. A great straight man to Babs’ slapstick comedy, that’s for sure, but there were times when he was just so causally beastly that it made me cringe a little. There was one scene in which it seemed like O’Neil was going to rape Babs because she was able to resist his advances. I’m saying, I thought I was watching the prequel to Raging Bull at times. Once again, this is not new for the 70s but it’s interesting that it bothered me most on a movie that is a step in the right direction for women.

And speaking of racist. Proving that this movie was from another time frame that was not as politically correct is a boxer named Hector played by Beyonce’s father-in-law, Richard Lawson, sporting the worse Dominican accent that I’ve ever herd. A little insulting, it was like the only thing the filmmakers knew was that the DR was it’s located in the Caribbean.

But I feel my rant is being too hard on the movie. Babs is funny and Babs and O’Neil make a great team, but the movie was not that funny that I it could hide what was wrong with it. Maybe I would have felt differently seeing this movie before 2014 and can see the heartfelt funny film about the battle of the sexist for what it is, but I saw it now and found it tiring. In all fairness I should see the movie again. This time not under the prospective that it’s one of the greatest boxing movies ever, cause I think that was the problem.