queenondi I laughed at every scene in this movie! I happened to catch this one while channel surfing for nothing in particular, so I missed the opening moments. Being that I was 19 when this came out, the god awful patterned & silken pants suits ON MEN totally made sense to me. And despite the fact that in one scene, when the lead actress had her strongest scene, that glorious moment was overshadowed by "Shut Up" "B--!" from 2 different male actors-I still give this movie a thumbs up. Aside from that, it's truly worth your time if you want to escape into giggles & chortles for about 90 minutes. I mean, everything in this movie is absolutely absurd and can't possibly be reality. (Well except for the exploitative world of pugilism and debauchery-everything else is conjecture.)

Robert J. Maxwell Money corrupts and absolute money corrupts absolutely. Some of the lines go something like this. "I get my brains beat out and what I got for it? Two Rolls Royces!" "Well, that ain't bad." "But you got EIGHT!" It's a boxing satire in which opportunistic promoter Samuel L. Jackson, as a loud and beturbaned fakir, living in a gilded palace and surrounded by double-D trophies, decides that revenue is falling because nobody wants to pay to see two black guys beating each other up in the ring. The solution? Find some white guy who doesn't have a chance and match them up in Las Vegas.The white guy is Peter Berg, Golden Gloves champ from some years ago who has gone on to a career in heavy metal in Cleveland without ever having fought professionally. Being a rock star isn't as bad as it might be. After a set, back in his crowded dressing room, his assistants usher groupies in one at a time for his appraisal. He shakes his head twice and nods on the third try, and she goes down on him while Jackson makes his pitch.It's pretty amusing. Flagrant hypocrisy often is. Molière did it better in "Tartuffe" but this is no slouch. I laughed out loud, sometimes at business that was going on in the background. The non-Irish Berg enters the ring wearing a kilt, accompanied by "Danny Boy" on the pipes and a couple of dwarfs dressed as leprechauns. He's a Buddhist who is only fighting to relieve the "homeless situation in America and the United States as well." There are a lot of B stories and some of them are lost in the shuffle. Jon Lovitz disappears half way through. Some of the pauses for laughter are too long, suggesting the movie isn't quite as funny as its makers thought it might be. And it does go over the top with aimless slapstick at times.Yet it IS funny from time to time and if you can put up with a lot of noise and rushing around it's worth catching. None of the performances can be faulted.

jotix100 Reginald Hudlin's "The Great White Hype" is a satire about what's wrong in boxing. The sport has had its share of bad luck, as it seems to attract a criminal element to what should be a competition between two men in the ring. The film starts with a promise to make justice to the material that Ron Shelton, one of the best writers/directors that has done his share about sports, co-wrote, but it feels as though something is missing, especially the anti-climactic conclusion.The best thing in the film is Samuel L. Jackson, an immensely talented actor who feels right at home portraying these low lives that only he can give them life and even make them likable. We wouldn't miss a movie in which this actor play because he always delivers, as is the case with his cunning character, the Reverend Fred Sultan. He is a boxing promoter who likes to cheat on his boxers, which is what he does to the actual champion, James, the Grim Reaper, Roper. Instead of paying him the money he owes him, he buys him another Rolls Royce.Reverend Sultan comes up with a great idea for his protégé Roper. He has heard the way the champ was defeated in his early years by Terry Conklin, a man that now has a career as a singer. Promising Terry a lot of money if he agrees, Sultan cons him into fighting Roper again and he creates a hype around the fight, the main attraction being, a black boxer, who is a champion, fighting an unknown white man. The racial implications play into the minds of the fans.Everything leading up to the match plays well. The only problem is the figure of Mitchell Kane, a sports commentator, who has been critical of the sleazy Reverend. Sultan takes care of that bringing him on board his team. On the other hand, loyal Sol, who has been with the Reverend for a while, gets fired.Damon Wayans has some good opportunities to show what a talented actor he really is. He knows he can defeat Terry Conklin. In the process of waiting for the fight he begins eating and puts on weight. Others in the film are, Jamie Foxx, who has a small, but effective role as the manager of another black boxer who wants to fight Roper. Peter Berg is clearly out of his league in the film as Terry Conklin a man who wants to eradicate the homelessness in America with the ten million dollars he has been promised. Jeff Goldblum, a good actor, is not convincing as Mitchell Kane. The beautiful Salli Richardson appears as Bambi, an intelligent young woman who clearly understands what's going on.

Dave-330 I used to be a boxing fan, until Don King and Tyson killed whatever credibility the sport had left, but I really enjoyed this movie. The whole beginning of the film with Wayans and Jackson going back and forth and the idea for the big PPV draw, seemed straight out of an actual King and Tyson meeting. The plot is pretty straight forward and most of the "jokes" miss, but it is a SATIRE not a comedy, so that is forgivable.Damon Wayans, Samuel Jackson, Cheech Marin, Peter Berg, and John Rynes-Davises, all give notable performances playing their characters well. The rest of the cast does a decent job of not taking the film too seriously with the notable exception being Jeff Goldblum, who tries so HARD not to make you laugh at him, that eventually you give up. It's like he was in his own film, trying to be so serious, but he is still able to help the film, but in a darker way than the rest.I will be the first to admit that most of the "jokes" that seem to pepper the satire seem to have been thrown in to generate a wider audience and alienate the ones that actually want to watch the movie. It plays more like a documentary on "How to Market a Fight," then an actual movie, but I like the amount of small details that went into making the film. It is too bad no one figured out "How to Market a Successful Film with the Guy from 'Pulp Fiction'" because maybe more people would had seen it. Overall it is still a must-see for those who like boxing or those who used to.