"Whenever you're dealing with the plot keywords 'fathers and sons' and 'sports,' the potential for emotional molestation is daunting, and Resurrecting the Champ doesn't defy any expectations on that count. Whatever finesse and restraint there is to Rod Lurie's direction is hobbled by Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett's screenplay, a bowdlerization of J.R. Moehringer's 1997 article for the Los Angeles Times Magazine—the script fails to attribute a quote it uses from famed journalist A.J. Liebling, shows not a jot of Moehringer's feel for the sport, and distills the complexities of its source into rote observations on redemption, dadhood, and integrity."

Click here to read Nick Pinkerton's review of Resurrecting the Champ.