DIFF REVIEW: ‘Sweet Science: A Boxing Documentary’
“Sweet Science: A Boxing Documentary”is a sports film with such power, pain and promise that it defies hyperbole. The seven-year odyssey of Dallas, Texas’ Oak Cliff Boxing Club and Coach Greg Hatley is painstakingly detailed by filmmaker Chris Howell through times of trial and triumph, grief and glory, labor and loss.
We watch as Hatley gives up the security of a firefighting job to follow his dream to provide a safe haven from the mean streets of South Dallas for kids who are willing to work hard and sacrifice. Coach Hatley has been where these kids are, and invests all of himself in building up a club where they can thrive and survive. The sincerity and earnest of the Oak Cliff Boxing Club is brought to life by the meticulous storytelling of director Howell.
As with any true story, there is plenty of adversity, loss and pain in “Sweet Science.” We become invested in Coach Hatley’s kids, Greg Jr. and Charlie, who work as hard as anyone to make their father’s dream of training young athletes to reach the U.S. Olympic trials come true. We watch Coach work diligently to protect those kids at risk who find purpose inside the walls of the OCBC, with varying degrees of success, and we suffer when tragedy cuts short the lives and careers of the unlucky ones.
Along the way, “Sweet Science” introduces us to amateur athletes like Big Greg Corbin and Dominic Littleton, pro fighters likes Sugar Ray Phillips and Floyd Mayweather Jr., strong family relationships which show where people like Coach Greg Hatley come from, and institutional inequities which can dash their dreams.
Howell exposes the flawed electronic point scoring system in amateur boxing employs without being preachy or judgmental, but by keeping a record of reactions to the flaws. He also shows us how precarious an endeavor like the Oak Cliff Boxing Club can be when financial benefactors, for their own reasons, simply pull the plug on the operating funds.
“Sweet Science” is a documentary without a narrator – the participants tell their own stories – but not without drama. When you see the graphic “Public Defender” on the bottom of the on screen, you get a sinking feeling in your stomach. When the “OCBC Mom” can hardly contain her tears when talking about one of the kids, you know that something terrible has happened.
“Sweet Science” is masterfully edited by Michael Fleetwood and Brian Hockenberry, with a haunting jazz score and original music by Eric Mingus.
This chronicle of the amateur boxing game is not just a must-see-movie for anyone who has ever put on the gloves, but for anyone who loves a good story. The moral is clear: Coach Greg Hatley will keep on getting up from the canvas and throwin’ from the shoulder, no matter what.
As for the hyperbole, “Sweet Science: A Boxing Documentary” is simply the best boxing documentary I have ever seen.
