Ted Levine Page 2

This is such a ripping true story that it can't help but grab hold of the audience, even if the film never quite breaks through the surface. A story of tenacious triumph in the face of seemingly impossible odds, it also offers Miles Teller a terrific against-type role as a beefy young boxer who simply won't take no for an answer. And the entire cast is just as surprising, adding textures to a movie that's a bit too straightforward for its own good.

This is the story of Vinny Pazienza (Teller), a young boxer who wins two world championships in two weight classes with the help of his father Angelo (Ciaran Hinds) and his trainer Kevin (Aaron Eckhart). Then at the top of his game, he breaks his neck in a car crash and is told he may never walk again, let alone fight. But Vinny is determined to remain the champ, so he returns to training, even though an injury could leave him permanently disabled. Kevin reluctantly agrees to train him, pushing him up into yet another weight class. And seeing the publicity possibilities, father-and-son promoters (Ted Levine and Jordan Gelber) set up a massive Vegas comeback match.

Writer-director Ben Younger shoots this with a steady authenticity, charging inexorably through the story in a way that echoes Vinny's singleminded determination. Along the way, there are strained relationships, a variety of physical and emotional obstacles, intense boxing matches and, of course, a few emotive training montage sequences. The story is so strong that the film can't help but be engaging and even rousing, even if there are very few shadings along the way. Vinny never seems to doubt himself at all, his family only barely objects to his potentially life-threatening decisions, and his opponents are clearly going down for the count.

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In Evolution, you get David Duchovny, (former) star of TV's The X-Files who has failed miserably to cross over to any kind of success in film. Julianne Moore, former independent darling before she started making movies like The Lost World and Hannibal. Orlando Jones, 7-Up pitchman and easily typecast goofball. And Seann William Scott, whose most visible role was as a stoner in Dude, Where's My Car?

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It is readily apparent that Will Smith, Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh had a ball on the set of "Wild Wild West."

Smith -- playing gun-slinging government agent Jim West -- looks so cool in his leather pants, waistcoat, and bolero jacket and hat, that at one point in the movie he's standing next to the voluptuous and nearly naked Salma Hayek (in a largely ornamental role), and your eyes are drawn to him. It's gotta be fun to look that slick.

Kline gets to play government agent Artemus Gordon, an eccentric inventor and master of disguise, which is right up his alley. He can barely keep from cracking himself up in his introductory scene, vamping around in saloon matron drag and pancake makeup.

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Perhaps it's not fair to begin a movie review by comparing a remake to its original, but since director Jonathan Demme has been proudly trumpeting "The Truth About Charlie" as a reimagining of Stanley Doden's 1963 romantic thriller "Charade," he's practically asking for it.

What the films have in common is a plot centering on a beautiful young woman named Regina (Audrey Hepburn then, Thandie Newton now) who returns to Paris from vacation to discover her husband has stripped their stylish apartment bare, disappeared with a fortune she didn't know he had, and subsequently turned up dead. With the money still missing, dangerous strangers start coming out of the woodwork, convinced she knows where it is.

In "Charade," Hepburn's sprightly Regina meets the suave and cunning -- perhaps a little too cunning -- Peter Joshua, played by Cary Grant, and falls for him as he tries to keep her safe and help her solve the mystery of the absconded riches. In "Charlie," Newton's clever but ingenuous Regina meets gym-buffed paramour Joshua Peters, played by Mark Wahlberg, who may look classy in a '60s-homage pokepie hat, but as a character he's dry, dry, dry.

Continue reading: The Truth About Charlie Review