Bruised Review

 

Bruised is a sports drama movie. The film is produced by Thunder Road Pictures, Entertainment 300, and Romulus Entertainment and distributed by Netflix. Bruised is written by Michelle Rosenfarb and directed by Halle Berry.

The story is a disgraced MMA fighter named Jackie Justice is trying to find her way back to the cage. While on this journey for redemption, her six year old son has reentered her life. Now she must find a way to be both a great cage fighter, and also the mother her son can be proud of.

Initial Reaction

The main reason I wanted to see this movie was because Halle Berry is directing it. We all know she's very talented actress, so seeing what so can do both in front and behind the camera makes you very curious.

Cons

The only thing I found awful about the film was the forced relationship. Basically what happened was Jackie all of sudden now has feelings for one of the other characters. It wasn't only unnecessary, but it also didn't have any build up. Sure the characters spend time together, but it didn't feel like there was any sort of romantic tension between the two.

Middle Ground

There are three gray areas with Bruised, one of those being Halle Berry's directing. I thought it was decent enough. Nothing really too spectacular, but I thought it worked well for the movie. Another aspect was the fights. There are times when they worked. Other times they do come off as too choreograph. Ya know what I mean? Those fights where when the characters move it doesn't seem like it was just a natural movement for say, a punch. The other mix bag was Jackie's journey back to the ring. There were some attempts to do something else, however it almost felt like the filmmakers just couldn't help but fall into the cliches and tropes that were familiar with when it comes to these sports drama films.

Pros

The one thing that truly saves the movie is Halle Berry's performance. The woman has shown time and time again that she can be in any film, whether it's great, good, okay, or the worse of the worse, and still pull off a great performance. And Bruised is no different.

Overall Bruised is alright. There's nothing that I found insultingly bad about it. Halle Berry's performance is great. The directing, the fights, and the Jackie's journey were just okay. The downside was the forced romance between Jackie and another character.

My final rating is Okay.

So that's going to do it for me. Come back on Monday, Nov 29th for my Cinematic Disasters review of the one, the only The Room. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.