From almost the minute it begins, you can tell something is off about the Roberto Duran biopic HANDS OF STONE. Rather than having faith in the Panamanian fighter’s intriguing and volatile life story, either the filmmaker (Venezuelan writer-director Jonathan Jakubowicz) or the people responsible for editing this film decided to begin the film with narration—not Duran (played to fiery perfection by Edgar Ramirez) telling us his life story, but rather his trainer, the legendary Ray Arcel (Robert De Niro), giving us his perspective on Duran’s rise and fall. What the almighty hell?
This being a Weinstein Company film, you can draw your own conclusions about where the narration and sloppy editing originated, but the resulting film is an unqualified mess that almost goes out of its way to hide what would have been impressive performances were they not chopped into micro-moments. The film speeds through Duran’s fascinating life story, from his life as a street kid in Panama to his professional boxing debut at the age of 16, to his most memorable match against Sugar Ray Leonard (an impressive turn by Usher Raymond IV), to his rematch with Leonard, which he ended with the infamous utterance “No mas.” (Duran claims he never said this, but he was clearly defeated.)
But rather than take the time and linger in any part of Duran’s colorful and sometimes self-destructive life that might help an audience learn about his past, his fighting style or, his motivation to want to fight and defeat any American boxer, HANDS OF STONE blazes through his early years. The focus is especially the whirlwind romance between him and future wife Felicidad Iglesias (Ana de Armas, currently in WAR DOGS). When he was just a boy, he was at the heart of the Panamanian clash with American forces to keep control of the Panama Canal, and it tainted his feelings about coming to the states to train with Arcel at the behest of his local trainer Carlos Eleta (Rubén Blades).
Perhaps even worse, the film takes time away from Duran’s story to walk us through various dealings involving Arcel with the New York mob (represented by John Turturro as boxing promoter Frankie Carbo), with whom Arcel had to clear Duran’s first fight in the city. I’m sure a fine movie could one day be made about Arcel and his long career as a man who trained a couple dozen of the finest fighters of the 20th century, but every minute HANDS OF STONE lets itself drift away from Duran, it becomes that less interesting. Not that I didn’t enjoy the dynamic between Arcel and his protective wife Stephanie (played with a quiet dignity by Ellen Barkin), but their scenes are more distraction than enhancement of this journey.
Not surprisingly, the best (and seemingly least mangled) sequences in HANDS OF STONE are the boxing matches themselves, which are brutal, bloody and carefully staged and executed so that we can see the techniques at work. Arcel drills strategy into Duran’s brain, and when he follows the gameplan, he wins; when he allows himself to be distracted, well, usually he still wins; it just takes a little longer. In particular, with the bouts with Leonard, we can see the different fighting styles of the two men—Duran comes in like a bull, while Leonard is more about floating and dancing until he finds his opening. Director Jakubowicz is clearly in his element in these scenes, and if the rest of the film were this powerful, it would be a true triumph.
I’m guessing somewhere in the world there is a much longer and better cut of Hands of Stone, and I’d love to take another crack at watching that version of Duran’s rags-to-riches story. The movie certainly doesn’t paint him as a saint. He has a chip on his shoulder and a short fuse connected to his temper. Only an actor as good as Ramirez (THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, CARLOS, JOY, last year’s POINT BREAK remake) to show both sides to this complicated figure.
As much as Arcel’s story takes us out of Duran’s tale, the training sequences are essential to understanding how skilled a fighter Duran truly was in his prime. But then that pesky narration pops in again, reminding us through whose eyes we’re really seeing this unfold. It’s a shame because there’s clearly a much better work on a cutting-room floor somewhere, and I’d be curious to see it. What we’re left with are swirling, hacked-up fragments that don’t come together the way they should.
