Hey folks, Harry here with a look at Walter 'baaaadassss' Hill's latest film.... UNDISPUTED. We've heard mixed things about the flick, and even this review has its problems with the film, but likes it. Doesn't love it, but he digs it for Ving Rhames and Peter Falk... That's good enough for me....
Harry, big fan, great site, love your work....
Anyways, Undisputed, I've seen it. You know, the one with Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames playing a pair of badass prison boxers. I was salivating when I heard about it. I'm a big fan of Snipes, and as for Ving, well ever since he played Don King better than Don King could have... I have been hooked.
I'm gonna try and keep this spoiler free, so here goes.
First of all, this isn't a bad prison movie. Not in the slightest. It's not even close to the work of art that was Runaway Train but it's certainly better than some of the schlock prison films I've seen in my time. The area where Ving spends most of his time looks like the Prison from Oz on HBO. Which is a nice touch. Snipes on the other hand, spends a large chunk of the movie in solitary confinement. Why? Because Rhames sucker punched him, that's why. (Yeah, it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me either.)
The cast of this sucker is surprising to say the least. Fischer Stevens is in here, as well as Peter Falk and Michael Rooker. Falk plays the mandatory old mob shark that runs the prison with a iron fist and walks around with a pair of canes. He's actually kind of amusing and I'm pretty sure that Quentin Tarantino wrote the rant he gets to have at the tail end of the film just before the fight. Fisher plays a scumbag arsonist who acts as manager for Snipes and Rooker plays head screw, although a charitable one as opposed to the prerequisite prick.
I liked the movie, but I didn't love it. Maybe I went in expecting too much. Ving plays a badass so bad that he intimidates even the Warden. Anybody that he imagines is disrespecting him in any way gets pummeled.
Snipes on the other hand plays a brooding lifer. He's so mellow you'd hardly guess he's in for murder.
Maybe that was the big problem here. Ving and Snipes didn't get a whole lot of time to interact, and when they did interact, Rhames acted circles around Snipes. Wesley, Buddy, I love you, I mean that, but you've done better work.
Anyways, to summarize, Rhames goes to prison, pisses off everybody. Peter Falk, the old mob dude obsessed with boxing, arranges a fight between the two by giving them both what they want and threatening to have murdered anybody that interferes.
As for the fight at the end, it looked like a good boxing match. Which is to say, not one fifth as cool as any of the the scraps we saw in Blade 2. Which is reasonable, I mean it's a prison film, I don't expect Wesley to pop out a sword and fill Ving full of silver slugs. (Maybe in the alternate ending on the DVD.)
So, long story short. Undisputed, not bad. There's some weak moments, but Falk and Ving really carry this film until the fight, and after the fight is over it's all downhill from there. This movie would fill the bill if you were looking for something a little different, and it's a lot better place to spend eight bucks than that festering piece of shit MIB2.
Call me Slumley
