Lightweight boxing film can't answer the bell to address gender issues

• Ryan tinkers with her image again

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

AGAINST THE ROPES (PG-13) Two Stars (Fair) Meg Ryan is a woman looking to make a name for herself in the male-dominated world of professional boxing. Omar Epps is her boxer in a lightweight film with the gravitas of a made-for-TV movie. Charles S. Dutton directs. Paramount, 111 minutes. Paramount Pictures

The story obviously echoes "Erin Brockovich," another relatively recent female-empowerment saga with better performances and a mores substantive script. And, in both cases, a popular actress tries to stretch her persona into a rough, tough blue-collar world, laced with testosterone.

But while Julia Roberts and her writers stayed fairly loyal to Brockovich's real-life adventures in advocacy law, "Against the Ropes" seems pure fancy. Maybe that's why the screen credits say "inspired by" instead of based on the life of boxing promoter Jackie Kallen.

The real Kallen was a sports journalist who began a PR firm and represented boxer Thomas Hearns. In logical succession, she became his manager, admittedly tackling a male-dominated sport. The story here has been downgraded to a lightweight distaff Rocky of a made-for-TV quality.

As it opens, Kallen is the unappreciated, 36-year-old secretary for the manager of a sports arena in Cleveland. She wants more responsibility; he wants his coffee with cream.

Kallen gets sassy with a big-time fight promoter after one his boxers is pummeled in the ring. He's Sam LaRocca a slimy boxing kingpin, wonderfully played by the always-resourceful Tony Shalhoub. LaRocca says if you think you can do better with the boxer, you can have his contract for a buck. She takes him up on the deal.

Though the fighter is a bust, he leads Kallen to a better, but still unknown boxer (a scrappy Omar Epps), who becomes Kallen's ticket to feminist breakthrough.

Of course, the film comes down to a big make-it-or-break-it fight, but it's uncomfortable watching how director Charles S. Dutton maneuvers the sequence so it looks like Kallen wins the fight from outside the ropes, even though it's Epps taking the punches.

Ryan brings the sex appeal and spunk you'd expect to the role. But, like the movie itself, she never successfully delves below the surface.

Against the Ropes offers some entertaining punches, but ultimately goes down on a split decision. Rated PG-13, profanity, fight violence.

Ryan tinkers with her image again

Charles Dutton and Meg Ryan in a scene from "Against the Ropes," which Dutton also directed. The film, based on the true story of Jackie Kallen, opens today. Paramount Pictures

The questions follow her, but she has to develop a pat answer: Don't people just want to see you in romantic comedies? Are you tired of being America's sweetheart? Will people ever accept you in serious roles?

"I'm not really that sick of (the America's sweetheart tag), really. Everybody thinks I'm sick of it.

"I've just been doing a lot of different movies for a long time," says Ryan, whose latest image adjustment — besides an obvious and much-discussed lip job — comes as real-life female boxing promoter Jackie Kallen in "Against the Ropes," which opens today.

Although the role marks Ryan's first sports movie, it's not her first attempt to shake up her image. She played a helicopter pilot in "Courage Under Fire" and a doctor (albeit a lovey-dovey one) in "City of Angels." Of her 30-something films, she notes, only "six or seven" are romantic comedies.

True enough, but a Ryan film hasn't crossed the century mark at the box office since "You've Got Mail, "which was, not coincidentally, a romantic comedy. In between doing "Kate & Leopold" (another cutesy role opposite Hugh Jackman), Ryan starred in "Proof of Life," an action-adventure film doomed, in part, by Ryan's affair with co-star Russell Crowe, behind the back of then-husband Dennis Quaid.

Her ex has publicly forgiven Ryan, but fans ignored her last effort, "In the Cut," which earned just $4.7 million last year. Ryan says the movie was tripped up by misguided attempts to sell it to mainstream audiences.

"It should have been opened in about 12 theaters," she says of "In the Cut," which landed in 800 venues before fading away.

There is some parallel between Ryan's career and the path of her character in "Against the Ropes." Ryan has tried to escape her perky image, and Kallen fought stereotypes to survive in a male-dominated sport.

"Sometimes people are much more comfortable with anyone if they're going to shrink to fit expectations, and a lot of expectations of people are very low," Ryan says. "And you don't have to match these low expectations. You can go and try different things and go places where people don't want you."