Title: Hands of Stone
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Jonathan Jakubowicz
Starring: Edgar Ramírez, Usher Raymond, Robert De Niro
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins

What It Is: Perhaps the greatest fighter in his weight class ever as well as the pride of Panama, Roberto Duran (Ramírez) fought his personal demons, as well as any man who wanted to have a go in the ring. With the help of the future hall of fame trainer Ray Arcel (De Niro), he’ll ascend the heights of the welterweight division. With foe (and eventual friend) Sugar Ray Leonard (Usher Raymond) pushing him in one direction and the turmoil in his homeland in the other.

What We Think: Edgar Ramirez is great here and he continues to be a good part of movies he is better than. I really enjoyed seeing Robert De Niro try! That was nice. He’s had a string of surprises, especially last year with The Intern and Joy. Overall everything seems fairly run of the mill when discussing the narrative, outside of this I was extremely surprised at Usher Raymond’s performance as Sugar Ray Leonard. It truly suffers from the story and Jakubowicz’ direction is somewhat aimless. Perhaps a lighter touch would’ve straightened out some of the narrative nightmares.

Our Grade: C, It is by no means a terrible film, in fact, it could be considered an alright biopic. Its main flaw is not being daring enough. Whereas a film like Southpaw or the stellar Creed that are complete works of fiction do a better job of being compelling, and telling their boxing story. I’ll recommend this to people who understand the real story or really appreciate a boxing story. Otherwise you can probably pick out most of the plot points pretty easily. I still think Ramirez was pretty good here though, dude is killing it.