Knockout (2011)

Written by Evan Jacobs & Joseph Nasser
Directed by Anne Wheeler

The biggest flaw this movie had going was the cinematography, I don't know what it is about Canada, but you can spot their productions by the look of the movie before you hear your first "aboot".  Otherwise, this is what it is:  A "G" rated family film starring Stone Cold Steve Austin in a loose boxing remake of "The Karate Kid".  The script is even so clever, the main character notices his parallels to that movie!   It's not a bad film, it's the type of thing I would have loved at 6-10 years old.  Watching it now, as an adult, I find it has a lot of the "nice" elements that family movies typically gloss over in favor of "this only sounds gross, it's not actually gross" laughs family films seem to shoot for today.

With that said, most people would find this to be an overtly hammy movie about a kid named Matthew Miller (Daniel Madger) who has to move to a new town and doesn't like it one bit, for all the usual reasons.  He wears a suit to school at his mother's insistence, and of course he cares more about knowledge than socializing, so immediately he's spotted as a victim.  Luckily, only the class clown Nick (Samuel Patrick Chu) spots him, and despite some jokes at Matt's expense, they end up becoming friends, where Nick introduces Matt to Ruby (Emma Grabinsky), this movie's idea of an "alternative" girl (which oddly reminds me of what Nickelodeon thought was "alternative" circa 1992) who of course Matt has an immediate crush on.

Quickly, Matt learns the ropes of the school, which includes the idiom that the toughest kid in school is the state champion boxer, who of course boxes to release some of his unfettered rage he seemingly has, never able to not pick on Matt.  The obviousness of the stereotypes aside, most of these kids aren't very good actors to begin with, so their attempts at unique characters get lost in the awful dialogue, broad overacting, and G-rated insults.

Steve Austin steps up as the lead actor here, using his charisma to keep the film from being a boring mess.  Which, amazingly, it's really not.  Although, whomever had Steve shave his mustache should be slapped.  I suspect that's what this film really was, a chance for Steve Austin to step outside the Condemned/Expendables tough guy role and show he has a little bit of range, and can still make family friendly entertainment.  To me, that shows the greatest improvement in Austin's abilities, rarely before has he been tasked with making people laugh without cursing or violence, and very rarely was he intended to be heartfelt.  Here he does both with aplomb, showing he's ready for bigger and better things. 

I noticed the budget for this film was $9 million, my main question is where that money went.  It didn't go into design, actors, or fancy camera rigs.  Besides that fact (more suited to the worries of the producers, I suppose) I can honestly say I enjoyed most of this film, despite the fact that it's a very blatant Karate Kid rip-off, it has enough heart and family friendliness to not be an awful boring mess as so many of these films are.  For the crowd it was made for, probably not many people outside of that 6-15 male age range will find anything of value though.

7.0/10 (C-)