Resurrecting the Champ, like the poster says, is the true story of a lie.

In the film, Josh Hartnett plays Erik Kernan, a Denver sports reporter who happens to run into some kids beating up an old homeless man, played by Samuel L. Jackson. The homeless man, who calls himself, “Champ”, tells Erik he is former boxing great Bob Satterfield.  The funny thing is that the world had long thought of Satterfield as dead – yet there he stands, proudly proclaiming, “number three in the world!”

Sensing a story that could make his career, Kernan convinces Champ to agree to a series of interviews and Kernan writes a “knock out” story that makes him quite famous in the sports world – but not for reasons he’d ever imagine.

One of my biggest issues with this movie was the fact that both main characters are awful people. I don’t want to give anything away, but the movie poster’s tag line pretty much gives away Champ’s ultimate sin in the film.

But let’s move on to Kernan. He’s a terrible person. The man is a pathological liar, even to his own young son. He goes behind the back of his boss. He’s manipulative and selfish.
It was no wonder he was separated from his wife.

In fact, when things go terribly, terribly wrong for him, I felt no sympathy. The only two words I could think of were “poetic justice.”

Samuel L. Jackson’s performance of Champ reminded me of Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s performance in Capote. In a lot of ways, it was a great performance which I’m sure imitated the real-life inspiration very well. But it was irritating. In the film Jackson speaks with a raspy, high-pitched tone that got under my skin quickly.

At 111 minutes (that’s an hour and 51 minutes if you don’t feel like doing the math), the film feels like its well over two hours. At times, the movie’s pace moves nicely, but becomes sluggish at others.

While Resurrecting the Champ isn’t an outright bad movie, given the other choices at the multiplex, I don’t think this movie will be resurrecting much of anything.