Red Carpet No Mas

(We sent our crack correspondent, Baggiesboy, to last week's opening night of the Tribeca Film Festival, at which he caught a double bill of sporting filmography - "The Hammer" and "Chavez." Here is his report...)

My night at The Tribeca Film Festival featured a double-bill of boxing world premieres: Adam Corolla’s loosely-autobiographical comedy, “The Hammer,” and Diego Luna’s highly anticipated documentary, “Chavez.” I was hoping for the celluloid equivalent of the 1979 Marvin Hagler-Vito Antuofermo/Sugar Ray Leonard-Wilfred Benitez Caesar’s Palace card. That was not to be. Like that long ago evening in the desert, it was not a marvelous evening but it did feature a memorable ending.

Both movies began with the red carpet treatment: Howard Stern, Camryn Manheim and Tiki Barker chatted to NY1 at “The Hammer,” but as ABC’s pre-Oscar perp walk host Chris Connelly was standing guard at “Chavez,” clearly THAT was the main event. And cinematically that proved the case as well.

“The Hammer” is a potentially excellent TV sitcom pilot waiting to happen. Corolla, who also wrote the screenplay, plays Jerry Ferro, a genial loser who is spared wallowing in self-pity by a crucial dash of self-loathing. A one-time knockout artist with Olympic ambitions, Ferro self-destructed to avoid discovering if he could handle success. Upon turning 40, Ferro decides its time to take stock of his wasted life (hates his construction job, dumped by his girlfriend.) Through a series of comic conceits, (and vicious lefts), Ferro finds himself training for the U.S. Olympic Trials and a shot at golden Beijing glory (the movie pulls no punches in stating that its as likely Adam Corolla will win an Olympic gold next year as any other American boxer.)

Corolla can deliver a comic line, as well as write them, (and he knows his way around Home Depot and the ring – Ferro’s back story, as Corolla acknowledged in the Q&A; session afterwards reflects his own experiences as a carpenter and boxing instructor), but director Charles Herman-Wurmfeld asks too much of his star with a smattering of Bill Murray-style close-ups throughout the movie that never pay off.

The pay-off in “Chavez” is a long time coming. Not final round, last 5 seconds late coming ala Chavez-Meldrick Taylor, but like that epic finale the closing reel of Luna’s loving tribute to his hero will linger in the consciousness.

In his post-movie comments director Luna stated that he wanted to tell the story of a national hero, a great champion and a father. That is on the screen, but it helps to know the magnitude of the Chavez story going into the theater, as Luna jumps around a lot which will leave the non-boxing fan more than a little puzzled. (It would have been interesting to get Chavez’s ex-wife’s opinion on all this, but Luna decided against using her interview in his film, an indication that hero-worship can get the better of even the most talented artists.)

The square-circle is a lonely place. The fall from grace is even more solitary. And that is where the power of this movie lies: Adios Chavez to paraphrase Bob Arum. Ultimately Luna’s lens is trained on a great champion faced with an opponent he cannot beat: age. Chavez knows it before anyone else, and yet never shoos the camera away. We watch a skeptical doctor accept the champion’s claim that his damaged hand doesn’t hurt too much, wonder if the trademark red headband is really a crown of thorns, see a beaten fighter sag into his stool before the long, long walk back to the losing locker room. The camera never sways from its mission, and neither does Julio Caesar Chavez.