Remakes from foreign-language originals often face difficulties in translating material from one cultural context to another, but seldom has that been so awkward as in “Uppercut,” Torsten Reuther’s Americanized retooling of his 2021 German debut “Leberhaken” (aka “Liver Punch”). What was already a problematically stagey wade into normally action-oriented terrain — the underdog sports drama — gains additional hurdles here from the writer-director’s tin ear for English dialogue, as well as the inexplicable return of a lead actor even less adept in a foreign tongue. Lionsgate is rolling this earnest but unconvincing feature out to limited U.S. theaters as well as digital platforms on Feb. 28.
The setup may well remind you of prior female boxer films, notably “Million Dollar Baby” and recent “The Fire Inside.” Alas, it never really gets beyond their narrative starting gates, in which a green but determined young woman pushes to be accepted as pupil by an initially dismissive, reluctant veteran trainer. That prolonged audition is pretty much the whole enchilada here, though now it’s intercut with scenes eight years in the future, when our aspiring-fighter heroine has become manager to a male pugilist facing a major bout.
This time, the ex-champ being wooed for his expertise is grizzled, grumpy Elliott, with Ving Rhames replacing the earlier film’s Hardy Daniel Kreuger. The would-be protégé, Toni, is still played by Luise Grossman, now billed as Luiii. If that monicker change is meant to bring new street cred to the performer, it works no better than anything else here for her — we don’t believe the character when she’s modeling Noo Yawkiness by admiring hip-hop dancers or grabbing a corner slice. (Apart from these establishing scenes, “Uppercut” was shot primarily in Los Angeles.) We don’t particularly believe her commitment to a brutal form of competition, as she grows sulky at the least challenge. Nor are we much persuaded by her smirking air of authority in present-tense scenes, where she’s coiffed and dressed like the glam androgynous pop stars of “Smile 2” and Brady Corbet’s “Vox Lux.”
But then, we never know exactly why German Toni is here to begin with, let alone why she chose this specific sport. Asked just that by Rhames at one point, she says, “I’m tired of having things handed to me. I need to prove that I’m more than my father’s daughter, especially to him.” So, this alternately cocky and petulant child of privilege insists on a pugilistic path to show up Daddy? Among all possible motivations for a protagonist in this sort of story, that may be the single least admirable.
It’s also a big issue that Reuther’s cliché-riddled dialogue is frequently hard to understand through his star’s heavy accent. Early on, the older Toni is revving up her own protégé (Jordan E. Cooper as Payne) before a match by telling him “They said, ‘You ain’t creek enough!’” At least that’s what it sounds like; it takes us a minute to realize she means “quick enough.” Whole speech passages likewise get garbled into indecipherability, further straining the dynamic with Rhames, who’s got his own weak lines and stereotypical character aspects to deal with while shouldering most of the film’s forced gravitas.
Taking nearly an hour before Elliott even begins to put Toni through any physical training, “Uppercut” can’t help but frequently feel like a creaky theatrical two-hander, despite valiant attempts to keep things visually fluid by editor Savannah Bayse and the two cinematographers. (DP Gevorg Juguryan was replaced by Mattia Palombi when the production got interrupted mid-shoot by industry strikes.) The leads are largely stuck sniping at each other between bouts of labored philosophizing and personal backstory, never coming close to a credible mutual rapport.
In the interwoven present-day scenes, Toni does very little but pace around an arena’s subterranean dressing room, arguing with her husband at home by phone while watching the bout on TV. It’s never really explained why she isn’t upstairs watching it live, let alone coaching her own athlete — a task that falls to an ill-used Joanna Cassidy as Rita. The brief glimpses we get of the fight itself aren’t enough to stir engagement or excitement.
The result is frustrating as well as patience-testing, since most of what we expect from a sports drama gets buried under dull talk. The psychological insights we might accept instead never quite arrive. The original film was made during the pandemic, making a virtue of necessity in its severely limited cast, crew and setting. “Uppercut” opens things up a bit in terms of locations and the character roster. Yet it fails to make much use of either. Supporting players and settings beyond the two principal interiors alike end up feeling like wasted resources.
Reuther’s apparent first instinct was to let a “seasoned American colleague” direct the remake, with Rhames’ management purportedly convincing him otherwise. That turns out to have been a misguided decision, as “Uppercut” sinks smack mid-Atlantic — the dated slang and derivative atmosphere are a poor approximation of urban U.S. authenticity, while this very German heroine never makes sense as a central figure. The director and star’s efforts may have lifted the German-language edition, but this static, lost-in-translation revamp just comes off as effortful, for little reward.
