(1979)
2.5
Perry Seibert
Franco Zeffirelli's remake of The Champ is a very rare type of movie -- a boxing film for women. Jon Voight is a plausibly credible-looking washed-up fighter, and Ricky Schroder is relentlessly cute as the young son he will do anything to keep. Faye Dunaway's mother is little more than a Cruella De Vil-like monster, until the plot takes its final melodramatic turn and forces the audience, and the little boy, to see her in a different light. The original version of The Champ was almost 50 years old by the time of this remake, but the startling thing about the 1979 edition is that it could have been released almost without change in 1931. The only "update" is the casting of modern stars that, by and large, fail to live up to the poignancy of the original cast. Zeffirelli could milk gallons of tears out of Romeo and Juliet because the source material is nothing less than a masterpiece that could easily sustain such a heightened level of emotionalism. The Champ is nothing more than a guy weepie, and the thicker the pathos is laid on, the less effective it is.
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awards for The Champ on AllMovie
The Champ (1979)
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
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Nominated |
Best Original Score
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1979 |
Hollywood Foreign Press Association
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Nominated |
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
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1979 |
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Won |
New Star of the Year - Male
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1979 |
