NR | 1h 39m | Drama, Sport | Sept. 20, 2024
“The Featherweight” is a mockumentary about the comeback of legendary boxer Willie Pep (James Madio). Six years retired, Pep attempts a daring return to the boxing ring.
Born Guglielmo Papaleo, Pep is like so many of the boxing greats who couldn’t figure out when to quit, like Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, and Roy Jones, Jr., to name a few. The 40-year-old Pep is getting ready to besmirch his, to-this-day, unmatched and astounding legacy of 229-11-1.
Living in in his hometown of Hartford, Connecticut, Pep is up to his neck in gambling debts and has far too much old-school Italian pride to take a security job at a hotel where people can see how far he’s fallen. This of course makes for an extremely angry individual.
Life and Times
Pep’s dysfunctional family includes his physically and emotionally abusive father Salvatore (Gordon Silva), a toxic relationship with his son Billy (Keir Gilchrist), and three failed marriages, including the latest one, to Linda (Ruby Wolf), that’s already coming apart at the seams like a well-worn heavy bag.
“The Featherweight” is director Robert Kolodny’s first feature film, and he lavishes it with careful attention to period detail. However, it has the same effect as visiting a friends’ grandmother when you’re 14 and being forced to sit through an hour of yellowing photograph albums, accompanied by a run-down of ancient anecdotes of deceased extended family members. To this scenario, add a “Raging Bull” and “Goodfellas” type delivery.
Pep’s anger is barely papered-over by above-described Italian bravura; he’s part charismatic jokester, and part mid-century chauvinist. He leaks a constant, low-grade but seething resentment from his sense of thwarted entitlement. He’s also perennially disappointed with the people surrounding him, such as his longtime trainer Bill Gore (Stephen Lang) and his business manager, Bob Kaplan (Ron Livingston), whom he feels are undermining his comeback attempt.
Why It Bogs Down
The (fictitious) documentary crew that follows Pep and his family around is Pep’s brainchild; it’s a last-ditch PR effort to gain attention for his comeback, and to help anchor his place in history after what he sees as a premature and unflattering exit from the sport.Unfortunately, the mockumentary artifice becomes increasingly annoying, for two reasons. First, the camera crew feels more like paparazzi. When asked to leave the room because some family drama is about to unfold, they retreat a few steps, but keep filming, which feels nosy and predatory on a current level—like flash mobs immediately whipping out cell phones to record anything with a notable level of agita to be posted later to social media.
Second, this framing device also feels off because people of that time period hadn’t yet evolved, via selfies and social media (meaning, as the entire world has now), into a massive collective of little film actors who are completely comfortable in front of a camera. Everyone in “The Featherweight” acts like they were born with a camera in their face, and it becomes a subconscious, irritating incongruity.
The whole ensemble does admirable work, and Madio bears a strong resemblance to the real Willie Pep, but Wolf in particular provides the film’s most potent counterpoint to Pep’s prideful toxicity—being both tough and sassy, but also sweet and vulnerable. While Pep remains at a cold emotional distance from the audience, we do care about the wife who has her hopes of becoming an actress repeatedly subjugated to her husbands incessant need for attention.
