KNOCKOUT

The ROCKY movies have had a major impact on all kinds of sports movies. It’s surprising, therefore, that few movie studios, if any, have tried to make a ROCKY-type movie featuring women athletes. It took the popularity of women’s boxing to finally make such a movie. KNOCKOUT, a low-budget movie with a latino twist, is that movie. It’s a slightly punchy melodrama that’s still fairly engaging, despite some serious moral and spiritual problems in its Christian story.

Newcomer Sophia-Adella Hernandez plays Isabelle “Belle” Alvarado, a beautiful Hispanic woman whose widowed father Chuck is a dedicated, compassionate policeman and was a Golden Glove winner before he retired from boxing. When Belle’s best friend Sandra lies in a coma after a rough match with a black boxer named Tanya “The Terminator” Tessaro, Belle believes, somewhat inexplicably, that she can do better. This upsets her father, who promised his deceased wife that he would take care of Belle. He also promised her, however, that he would let Belle pursue her dreams, so he eventually agrees to help her train. Also helping her is Mario, Chuck’s young partner who loves Belle but can’t get the courage yet to tell her.

With the help of a white manager and a black promoter, Belle rises in the ranks until she finally gets a match with Tanya the Terminator. A tragedy makes her question whether she can go on with her career. A vision from heaven, however, inspires her to jump into the ring to face the impressive Tanya.

If all this sounds predictable, it is. The characters and their situations, however, are engaging, especially the relationship between Belle and her father. KNOCKOUT manages to garner lots of respect for Belle’s father, who tries to help a young boy from the neighborhood escape a life of crime. Both Hernandez as Belle and Tony Plana as Belle’s father add a depth of feeling and credibility to their simple characters.

Best of all, KNOCKOUT has a Christian worldview with some moral elements. At one crucial point, Belle, who puts a crucifix on her robe, credits God with helping her by giving her strength and courage. People also tell her to let her light shine before men, echoing the words of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. At another point, a Roman Catholic priest reads Scripture and mentions the Trinity in Latin as Belle and other people pray with him and do the sign of the Cross. The sign of the Cross has an important theological meaning. When a person makes the sign of the Cross, they are in effect saying to God, “I pledge my mind, heart and strength to the service of the Father through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Regrettably, the positive Christian worldview in KNOCKOUT is marred by several non-Christian elements. Those bad elements include a few foul words by the Roman Catholics in the movie, words of gratitude to the Virgin Mary from Belle’s friend, two visions of two dead people giving word of advice and inspiration from Heaven, and a scene showing Belle and Mario sleeping in bed together while they await the championship match in Las Vegas. Obviously, modern filmmakers can’t avoid inserting unorthodox or even sleazy material even when they’re including positive Christian elements in their movies. Some people may also find the idea of Christians participating in the often brutal sport of professional boxing to be distasteful or disturbing, not to mention the feminist notion of validating women boxers. It’s good to see, however, that at least some filmmakers are recognizing the Christian beliefs of many professional athletes.

The brief foul language in KNOCKOUT requires an extreme caution rather than just a mild one, even though the movie is rated PG-13 rather than R. The boxing violence is not as brutal as many ROCKY movies, however, and it’s definitely not as brutal as the final boxing match in the recent, awful PLAY IT TO THE BONE.