THE STORY – Recently released from prison, coach Walt Mangian joins a local youth gym to help a ragtag team of adolescent boxers aspiring to a national championship.
THE CAST – André Holland, Wendell Pierce, Samira Wiley, Anthony B. Jenkins, Toussaint Francois Battiste, Mykelti Williamson & Andre Royo
THE TEAM – Sheldon Candis (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 93 Minutes
Walter Manigan (André Holland) has spent the past three and a half years in prison. Now that he’s out early from a five-year sentence, he just wants to get himself together so that he can be there for his young son. In order to do that, though, he has to prove to his ex Ketta (Samira Wiley) that he’s truly ready to leave his dark past behind. An incident outside the local Community Center in his Southeast DC neighborhood leads Walt to Peanut (Anthony B. Jenkins), a boy who can barely speak up for himself. A former boxer, Walt tells the boy to always fight back, and the boy comes back to the center for boxing lessons. Coach Slim (Wendell Pierce) recognizes Walt as a former practitioner of the craft and can see his desire to come back to the ring, so he lets him sleep in his office in exchange for helping out around the center, for as long as its doors stay open. But how can Walt be a role model to young men when he isn’t even sure of his own goodness?
Based on the 2018 documentary of the same name, Sheldon Candis’s “They Fight” has a lot on its mind, far too much for its slim runtime. Both thematic and character work feel shortchanged because of this, as no single element gets enough space to breathe. The film is simultaneously a drama about a broken man getting his life back together after a stint in prison and an inspirational sports drama about young boys learning to value themselves through sport. There’s no real reason this couldn’t have worked, but it needed a runtime much closer to two hours in order to do so. Trying to cover young Peanut’s introduction to boxing, training alongside classmates Quincey (Toussaint Francois Battiste) and Twin (Tory Jacqui Malone), and participation in two tournaments alongside Walt searching for a job, proving to Ketta and himself that he can be a better person, training the boys, and struggling to stay off drugs after three years clean, means that some shortcuts have to be taken to get the film in at 90 minutes (give or take).
Unfortunately, those shortcuts leave poor André Holland struggling in the lead role. The conflicted, soulful Walt is the kind of role Holland can play in his sleep, and he’s particularly wonderful in the film’s first third as Walt has to humiliate himself in front of people he knew before he went to prison, desperately trying to find a job and a place to sleep. Even the tiniest bit of kindness throws him for a loop, as though he genuinely believes he doesn’t deserve it. It’s heartbreaking work, but as the film goes on and its scope widens, the writing starts leaving some gaps that grow into giant holes too big for the talented actor to fill. During a lengthy training montage, Candis calls upon Holland to spout what sounds like every single sports movie cliché one after the other with a straight face. Bless his heart, Holland tries, but not even his weary commitment to the character can overcome the hokiness of the dialogue. He’s also not helped by Candis’s decision to withhold the majority of Walt’s story until a big third-act reveal, which forces Holland into a corner where he has to play Walt as more of a generic “man with a past” instead of this man with a very specific past.
The rest of the cast does as much as they can with the material, with Wiley the standout for the way she slowly melts as the wary Ketta. Battiste and Jenkins give incredibly endearing performances, as does the venerable Pierce, but unlike the boys, he’s unable to bring enough unique personality to his overly generic coach role. Due to the simple power of the real-life story, which owes so much to the pure kindness of others, you root for “They Fight” throughout. The threads about different ways to express masculinity have a quiet power, especially in the hands of Andre Royo in a one-scene cameo as Peanut’s absent father, and it’s moving to watch Holland’s introspection as Walt really tries to deal with his demons. Unfortunately, Candis’s screenplay doesn’t give him or the audience enough to chew on, turning this wannabe crowd-pleaser into a flat trudge of a drama. To the extent that “They Fight” is watchable, it’s due to the cast, but they can’t quite make it good.
