PRICE OF GLORY (2000)
Rated PG13; running time 117 minutes
Genre: Drama
IMDB site: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0188160
Official site: http://www.priceofglory.com/  
Written by: Phil Berger
Directed by: Carlos Avila
Starring: Jimmy Smits, Jon Seda, Clifton Collins, Jr., Maria del Mar,
Sal Lopez (Hector Salmon), Louis Mandylor, Danielle Camastra,
Ernesto Hernandez, Paul Rodriguez, Ron Perlman

Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000
Review URL: http://www.3blackchicks.com/bamsprice.html

I went in to see PRICE OF GLORY with a slight sense of dread: after
being upset for so long about the havoc Jon Seda's character Falsone
wreaked on TV's HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET (RIP), I was sure that his
character here would just overwhelm everyone else, leaving me with a bad
Seda taste in my mouth once again.   Boy, was I wrong--in more ways than
one.

The Story (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**):
Arizona-based Arturo Ortega (Jimmy Smits) coulda been a contenda--until
his opponent opened up a can of whupass on him in a 1977 boxing match.  

13 years later, Arturo starts to live out his dream of boxing glory
through his young sons Sonny and Jimmy, both of whom he trains in a
Mariposa, Arizona gym.  Sonny is the more skilled of the two
brothers--something that Arturo never lets Jimmy forget--but when Sonny
and Jimmy do relatively badly at a Silver Gloves tournament, their
youngest brother Johnny surprises the whole Ortega crew by announcing
that he's ready to give up street football to become a boxer, saying
"them two stunk!"

10 years later...17-year-old Johnny (Ernesto Hernandez) intensely
prepares for his Golden Gloves tournament, and catches the eye of boxing
scout Pepe (Paul Rodriguez) and promoter Nick Everson (Ron Perlman);
Everson approaches Arturo with the offer to "relieve" him of his
managing duties for Sonny (Jon Seda) and Jimmy (Clifton Collins, Jr.),
"throwing in" Johnny for good measure.  But Arturo has his eyes on the
prize--the glory days he sees ahead.  The question is, is it glory for
them--or for him?

The Upshot:
There's a point in this movie where it went from being enjoyable in its
look at family dynamics from a Latino point of view that is usually not
seen in mainstream Hollywood, to being a candidate for TV
Movie-Of-The-Week.  I can't quite pinpoint where PRICE OF GLORY lost its
slight edge, but it's there.  Maybe I blinked, and it was gone.  Or
maybe I was just so thrilled to see so many Mexican-Americans portrayed
on the Silver Screen without the stereotypically scripted behavior we've
come to expect, that I didn't notice the lack of depth all along.  And
that, not my assumption of what Seda would be like, is what left me
wanting more from this movie than it was prepared to deliver.

Early on, though, there were winning performances; Seda, in particular,
surprised me with his relatively muted turn as Sonny (if you've ever
watched him chewing the scenery in "Homicide", you'll know why I was
surprised).  His acting here was aided, no doubt, by the fact that he
once was a Golden Gloves boxer himself; he definitely looked comfortable
on the body bag.  Equally good in the early stages was Clifton Collins
as the put-upon Jimmy, and Maria del Mar as Arturo's wife Rita; I
cheered when seeing the interaction between Arturo and his wife, as they
looked genuinely attracted to each other, and dedicated (in different
ways) to their sons.  And in his feature film debut, Ernesto Hernandez's
Johnny Ortega didn't quite give an Oscar-worthy performance, but he had
his Intense Scowl look down-pat.

On the other side of the ring, Ron Perlman was never convincing as a
boxing promoter; about the only thing he could've promoted was a bout of
sleep.  I never did figure out what purpose Danielle Camastra's
character Mariella served; a throwaway role if I ever saw one, her
introduction to Arturo as Sonny's girlfriend served its purpose  
sufficiently enough, without the need to have her stand around looking
Sad in the background, taking up frames of film.  And maybe it was Just
Me, but Louis Mandylor just did not look like he belonged in a boxing
ring, though his turn as the rather mean-spirited Davey Lane did seem to
serve as a needed bit of conflict and tension that was missing from most
of the movie.  After all, what's a title bout without someone talking
trash?

Above all, Jimmy Smits gives a winning performance as patriarch Arturo
Ortega.  At times funny (his Thanksgiving prayer and insistence on
getting a rad green Cadillac convertible, made me laugh out loud), and
at other times pensive and sad, Smits showed a side of his acting
abilities that wasn't allowed to come to the fore nearly enough during
his NYPD-BLUE days.  

So why did PRICE OF GLORY fall so flat?  Beats me; maybe it developed
wobbly knees from going a round or two too long, and collapsed under the
weight of Delivering A Message.  The editor could have easily excised a
half-hour or so with no ill-effects, giving it a tighter focus and less
repetition on the theme.  Certainly, they could've lost the irritating
Paul Rodriguez in a pile of film in the trash dump; he used up his 15
Minutes a lifetime ago.

In the end, there just didn't seem enough there to rally around; by the
time the Obligatory Title Match came around, enough of the outcome had
been telegraphed beforehand to make the results all but assured, and
frankly, by that point, The Point had already been made.  And though the
movie seemed authentic on the boxing front, from both the writer's
standpoint as well as the cinematographer's great shots of the
pugilistic action--one in particular, with young Arturo hitting the
canvas, tore right through me, it seemed just that real--the spirit
seemed to drain out of the movie as it rolled on.  What had started out
as a fun flick, with great Latin sounds and interesting characters,
wound up as worthy of being a TV Afternoon Special.

Bammer's Bottom Line:
I wanted to give this one a higher rating, but story-wise, it's more
suited to a cable TV movie than a feature film release.  Still, Smits
shows he's got the nalgas to carry a motion picture on his own - if
Hollywood opens the door for him.  Hmmm...I wonder if I should hold my
breath...

PRICE OF GLORY (rating: yellowlight):
More a glancing blow than a knockout, it still gets props for what it
*didn't* show: stereotypical Latinos, Hollywood-style.  That's worth at
least an extra point or two on my scorecard.

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