Boxing cliches knock out formulaic 'Bleed for This'

“Bleed for This” is the latest boxing movie to pass through theaters, despite a waning interest in the sport. You know the formula: the underdog hero, the “Rocky”-esque training montage, the setback on the way to victory.

“Bleed for This” has all of that and not much more, save for a stellar performance by Aaron Eckhart as Kevin Rooney, the paunchy, balding boxing coach who once trained Mike Tyson but, by the early 1990s, when the movie is set, was a washed-up alcoholic. He stumbles into redemption, however, thanks to boxer Vinny Pazienza (Miles Teller), now known legally as Vinny Paz.

When they meet, Vinny seems like a lost cause, too. The Rhode Islander has been struggling to keep his weight down so he can fight as a junior welterweight, but he keeps losing. Under Kevin's direction, Vinny stops starving himself and fights at his natural weight. It turns out to be a winning strategy. But only until that dramatic setback.

After a near-fatal car accident leaves him with a broken neck, Vinny's doctors say he may not walk again. His best hope is to fuse his vertebrae, meaning his fighting days are over. Vinny refuses, insisting instead on wearing a halo - a metal contraption screwed into his skull - for six months, hoping that his body will heal itself so he can defend his title. No one thinks it's possible.

They clearly don't realize they're in a boxing movie.

Writer-director Ben Younger's pacing feels off, with too much time devoted to Vinny's life before the accident and his family. Vinny lives at home with his mother (Katey Sagal) and father (a badly cast Ciarán Hinds). Vinny's sister and future brother-in-law (Amanda Clayton and Daniel Sauli) are also a constant presence. Yet the characters remain vague, and this halfhearted attempt to tweak the boxing-movie formula can't change one fact: “Bleed for This” has no new moves.