MOVIE REVIEWS : ‘Heart’: Antidote to the ‘Rocky’ Mythomania

“Heart” (at the AMC-14 in Century City) is a likable “Rocky” played for real, a film made with much caring and authentic grittiness. It’s familiar, for sure, but rarely has the story of the determined, do-or-die boxer been told with such honesty and conviction. It’s refreshing as an antidote to the bloated “Rocky” mythomania.

Written by James Lemmo and Randy Jurgensen and directed by Lemmo, “Heart” is one of those solid, low-budget New York movies filled with great, lived-in faces and lots of dark, seedy, atmosphere--Jacek Laskus is the film’s gifted cinematographer.

With a mashed nose and a scarred forehead, Brad Davis plays Irish Eddie Brennan, an aging boxer who refuses to give up. His gruff but not unkindly boss (Anthony Bishop) at a wholesale produce market tells him to throw in the towel and so does his worn, bartender wife Jeannie (Frances Fisher). His weasely manager Nicky (Steve Buscemi, so heartbreaking as the wry, devilish AIDS victim in “Parting Glances”) merely wants him to throw his next match, to an up-and-coming fighter, a potential contender 10 years his junior.

The film’s twist is that Nicky knows better than to propose a crooked deal to Eddie, but has so little confidence in him that he sells him out behind his back. But, as Eddie’s guilt-ridden trainer Buddy (Robinson Frank Adu) says, a fighter’s gotta have heart to get past round number six--and Eddie’s got heart to spare.

You could wish that “Heart” ’s plot was as fresh as its performances. Davis makes Eddie appealing in his quiet singlemindedness, and Fisher’s Jeannie is absolutely flat-out real in her weary despair. Buscemi and Adu are just as terrific, and Sam Gray all but steals the picture as the contender’s shady manager, a silver-haired older guy with plenty of menacing savvy. “Heart” (rated R for standard ring bloodshed, some strong language) has as much heart as its scruffy hero.