Customer Reviews

Shadowboxer

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

When Rose (Helen Mirren, PRIME SUSPECT), a professional hitwoman, decides to renege on a contract and let an intended corpse and her baby live, her partner Mikey (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) knows their world is about to change drastically. They've been partners since he was a kid and she was the woman who partnered with his father on professional killings. She taught him everything about the art of killing. Clayton (Stephen Dorff), the crime boss who hired them to kill his wife and unborn child, is a truly psychotic animal. The problem is, Rose is dying of cancer and wants to leave something good behind. And she believes it will be this child.

Lee Daniels directed the movie as well as MONSTER'S BALL, another ethnic thriller that slammed audiences with sex and violence and gave Halle Berry the chance to win an Academy Award. Helen Mirren starred in the PRIME SUSPECT seasons on the BBC as well as THE QUEEN. Cuba Gooding, Jr. has been in several movies, including JERRY MAGUIRE, MEN OF HONOR, and SNOW DOGS. Stephen Dorff starred in BLADE and COVERT ONE: THE HADES FACTOR.

The film showcased developing characters and a telescoped plot that spread over years. Viewers are forced to read between the lines on some of the continuity, and to make judgment calls where the characters and action are concerned. The fascinating thing about the film is the dichotomy of how caring and how cold-blooded Rose and Mikey are, and the horror of Vickie's situation, never truly able to take care of herself or her child. Normally a film like this carries the views along on action alone, but there was a depth of character that allowed for fascination to set it. I simply couldn't stop watching to see how things came out, and on more than one occasion I didn't see a twist coming till it slammed me between the eyes.

There is a lot of sexuality, nudity, and violence in the movie, but it's genuine and real. Not gratuitious. This is a world of violent people, and it's presented with the carnality that's in that world.

SHADOWBOXER is a different kind of crime film. It has a lot of film noir elements, but they're presented in a different mix. If you liked A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, you'll probably enjoy SHADOWBOXER.

It blows my mind how such an excellent action packed twisted movie came through the theaters without a trace. I was glued to my seat throughout the entire movie. I was just blown away with the twisted love relationship between Cuba Goodin and Helen Mirren. All I can say is see it for yourself and you be the judge. This movie will go into my collection...

The film is quite unusual, but overwhelming enough to have my eyes glued and had my attention maintained on the screen. The film has one of the best onscreen chemistries you will really enjoy. "Shadowboxer" the very film is based on Mafia and Underworld, But there is something that makes it different from just another action flicks, the film throws enough light on life and relationships. Miren and Gooding has an excellent chemistry, having the unusual relationship yet so strong, so beautiful to watch. The film is dark, erotic, moreover very flamboyant and you will definately not be bored at all. The film has many moments to have you sit back and just admire the charecters. The film has such a lot to offer! They make you feel their joy, pain, grief, they make you think how it would be to be in their shoes. They make you think if life has dark stormy nights, it also welcomes warm sunny days. Its a film worth watching more than once. Very genuine, neat and decent filmmaking here!

This film has an interesting story involving a hitwoman's relationship to a young boy. She mentored and sexed him crazy. One of the hits was a pregant woman and.... I don't want to give too much away but it is a good movie. This is for mature audiences for there is language, nudity, sexual situations.

I found the storyline interesting in Shadowboxer. Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr. as assassins also intrigued me. Helen Mirren made the movie for me. She commanded every scene she was in. Cuba Gooding Jr. did a nice job considering the dialog (or lack thereof) he was given.

The premise is loadedd with possibilities. An assassin kills her partner and takes in his child son, who in turn becomes her partner - and more. Oh, the possibilities..... not in this movie. They are hired to kill a mobster's (Stephen Dorf) wife, but seeing she is pregnant, they spare her and take her in and help her raise her child. Obviously, life isn't going to be a cake walk for these folks. Eventually the situation blows up in the faces of all involved.

It's how the story became what it was that made this only a so-so movie. While having some interesting characters on one hand, the other hand is loaded with Hollywood cliches. An overweight, ghetto-speaking, nurse that wears a uniform that barely covers her rear, a doctor whose actions make no sense, and a mobster that is so over the top that it turns the movie into a fairy tale. People are shot as if it's no big deal to cover up. It's how these secondary characters talk and interact that makes this movie lose its credibility. Sometimes the bad guys have to be smart too.

By the end, any sane person has lost faith in the story. In fact, the whole problem the movie is based on could have easily been solved by assassinating the mobster. No having to live on the run or in hiding. Shadowboxer loosly reminds me of a much better film with a similar subject,The Professional. I was hoping to find elements of that movie in a more dramatic fashion. Unfortunately, this one doesn't quite live up to its promise.

Cuba Gooding and co-star Helen Mirren provide acting at its best. When Helen (The Queen) climbed out of her sick bed and spontaneously engaged in a sexy strip club type dance with her son/lover Gooding, I thought I'd seen it all. The entire cast, while quirky, was outrageously good. Comedian, Monique proved that her talent goes beyond being funny. The storyline had me captivated. Some scenes, though many may consider, sordid is captured through the lens of the camera and made to appear, utterly beautiful. Buy this. You won't be disappointed.

This 2005 film has all my favorite elements - sex and violence. It's also fast paced and exciting and, even though the plot is absolutely preposterous, I had no trouble following the twists and turns and constant surprises. It packs a lot of wallop into its 90 minutes of pure wild story, and I was involved and intrigued the entire time.

Hats off to a great cast too! Helen Mirrin, cast as Rose, is paired with Cuba Gooding cast as Mikey, as the most unlikely couple in the world. Not only is the relationship interracial, but she is 22 years older than him and he is her stepson. The screen sizzles with their romantic interludes and there is no doubt they love each other. To top off the outrageousness of it all, they make their living as contract killers. She just happens to be dying of cancer though and has agreed to do one last job.

Enter the crime lord bad guy played by Stephen Dorff who we first see torturing a man he thinks is having an affair with his wife. His wife, played by Vanessa Ferlito, is the one that he wants murdered and of course it is Rose and Mikey who he hires to do the job. Rose, dressed in black, enters the wife's bedroom with the intent of killing her. But the wife just happens to be 9 months pregnant and Helen and Mikey wind up delivering the baby and running away with the mother and child to hide. That's the basis of the plot and it gets even more outrageous as the story goes on. I loved it because it was different and that it dared to show one particular explicit coupling of Rose and Mike that will long be remembered.

This whole film is not believable. But I didn't realize it until after the film was over. While it was going on, I just couldn't take my eyes off the screen.

Shadowboxer is one of those quiet little movies that packs a huge wallop! Firstly, it's got a stellar cast featuring Dame Helen Mirren, Cuba Gooding Jr.and Mo'nique. It's a rollercoaster ride and it's dark, edgy and sometimes over-the-top.

Mirren and Gooding play Rose and Mikey, contract killers and lovers. Oh and Mikey is also her stepson...whee. Rose is dying of cancer but she and her "partner" take one last job--to kill the wife of a crime boss (played with cartoonishly sadistic glee by Stephen Dorff--who seems to be very good at playing psycho bad guys). Everything's fine and dandy until Rose enters the bedroom to finish the job and the wife (Vanessa Ferlito) starts giving birth right then and there. In an ironic twist of fate, Rose decides to save both mother and baby and the entire dysfunctional family moves out to the suburbs. Of course, it's merely a matter of time before something or someone gives them away.

This isn't a film for everyone, and there's certainly enough controversial aspects to merit the R-rating, and yet there's something wonderfully refreshing about a film that plays with our perceptions. It was interesting for Rose, a woman who's lived her entire life as a cold-blooded killer, to find her humanity in such a profound way in the act of bringing a new life into the world.

Okay, yes there is an interracial element with Mirren and Gooding and those scenes were well done, hot yet tender at the same time. They felt personal, though they also played with the squick element since Mikey IS Rose's stepson, and I really have to give it to Dame Helen for really just letting it all hang out (but then again she's always been sexy as all get-out to me).

Love this movie. It's a keeper!

This would get 3 and a half stars from if it was possible. This is neither a 5 star or a one star movie. So its not in the same ball-park as The Godfather or Goodfellas but its miles better than a lot of rubbish that comes out of Hollywood today.

The cast are all good. Helen Mirren as Rose and Cuba Gooding Jr as Mickey are two asassins who are paid to kill Vicki, but as she is about to give birth, they don't. In a role that Gary Oldman would have played 10 years ago, Stephen Dorff is the psycho husband/boyfriend who is left wondering what has happened to his child and the mother (who he was paying to have killed).

The film strays into areas that a lot of films won't go near. Mixed race relationships, and older women with a younger black man and the violence and sex is quite explicit. So if you don't like that sort of thing don't buy it or rent it.

In places it is overly stylised, but I cared about what happened to at least some of the characters and therefore overall I would recommend it. Renting first may be adviseable as it will not to everybodies taste. However I will certainly be watching it again and would purchase the film at the right price.

Lee Daniels (Monster's Ball, The Woodsmen) doesn't seem to know what to do with this script of a story by William Lipz that has so many incongruities that it simply becomes a muddled mélange of criminal psychology, sociological misfits, and ruminations on the presence of a greater meaning to all the wild madness that eventually drowns the characters. One wonders why such enormously gifted actors such as Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding, Jr. ever accepted roles if they read the script beforehand.

A very mature and cancer-ridden Rose (Helen Mirren, who can truly make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!) is a professional assassin who has raised Mikey (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) to be her co-assassin as well as her very young lover. The two function well as a team and succeed in making a handsome living by killing people to whom they are assigned by a wheelchair-ridden broker. But when one of the marks is big time crime boss Clayton (Stephen Dorff at his most buff to date, eye candy persona) and his wife Vickie (Vanessa Ferlito), all goes well until Rose faces the problem that Vickie is pregnant, a fact that seems to create a sense of guilt and loss and causes her not only to spare her and also to deliver the male child. After calling in a corrupt doctor Dr. Don (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and is lover/nurse Precious (Mo'Nique) to help them out, Rose and Mikey harbor the new mother and child and sequester themselves to raise the child, a life style that allows Mikey to continue his assassin jobs while Rose finds happiness raising the young boy. But of course eventually the evil Clayton disrupts the flow of goodwill, gains information from the Precious after an adulterous office tryst, and it is face to face between Clayton and his wife and son and Rose and Mikey. The ending defies sharing, not only because it would mar the viewer's watching, but it borders on surrealistic bizarre images that are of questionable taste.

During all of this convoluted story we are given flashbacks that attempt to fill in the interstices in the plot: Mikey's relationship to his father, his first killing, Rose's introduction into crime etc. Granted there are some moments of quiet and beauty in all of this mess, but the true reason for sitting through it is the always satisfying presence of Helen Mirren (who actually gets us to believe her preposterous character and motivation) and Cuba Gooding, Jr. (who needs to change agents to get roles more important and conducive to his gifts). With so many fine stories waiting to be made into film one wonders why drivel such as this makes it to the screen on time! Grady Harp, November 06