SnoopyStyle Young sports writer Erik Kernan Jr. (Josh Hartnett) for the Denver Times finds homeless Champ (Samuel L. Jackson) after he's beaten by some kids. He claims to be Bob Satterfield, a former heavyweight contender. His boss Ralph Metz (Alan Alda) isn't happy with his bland writing. He's separated with fellow writer Joyce Kernan (Kathryn Morris). He interviews secretly with magazine editor Whitley and in desperation, comes up with a pitch to write about Satterfield.Josh Hartnett is living off of his good looks and it's very douchy. Luckily for him, it fits his character quite well. Jackson is compelling as the down and out fighter. His ragged voice is great. The twist takes the movie from a sappy feel-good story into someplace a little bit deeper.

Wes Resurrecting the champ has the exact story line as a real life incident where a guy was claiming to be Buckwheat from the Little Rascals. There was guy back in the late 1980s or early 1990s that worked at Smitty's in Tempe Arizona that claimed he was Buckwheat from the Little Rascals. He was a minor celebrity in Tempe, like Elvis the Hillbilly, until 20/20 did a story about him. Spanky, another Little Rascals member, saw the 20/20 show. He called the 20/20 and said the guy was a fake and that he knew that Buckwheat had been dead for a long time. There were scandals, retractions, and I think someone lost their job at 20/20. It was kind of sad since he was just a nice old guy not out to hurt anyone. It was fun to go into Smitty's and say hey to Buckwheat. He was always friendly and even had the same hairdo.

KineticSeoul This is a sentimental movie with stellar performances. I dislike Josh Hartnett cause his character is usually cocky in many of his roles and that is what I see him as now, a cocky guy that gets irritating after a while, but in this role it's nice to see his character change although he lacks personality and kinda boring to watch. Samuel L. Jackson put on a great performance, his acting was a lot better than I thought. The story is basically a meeting between a ambitious journalist that wants his son to be proud of him and a boxing champ who climbed to be #3 in the world, reduced to being a homeless man scaling the streets in Denver, and they start a friendship but soon Josh Harnett's character starts to dig and find out all is not what it seems. The film shows the value of honesty, trust, vulnerability and consequences. This is a eloquent film with a good story that everyone can enjoy, unless your one of those viewers that just want things to blow up every minute. It was a good film but I think it dragged a bit and was a bit longer than necessary since at some points the film goes in a direction where the audience already consumed while not adding anything much, and the long running time doesn't add anything extra to Eric and the Champ to the point it fleshes them out very well either which makes the movie a bit slow, especially the champ cause it don't really show how he got to where he was, and so you just don't care for the characters as much and some of it is just dull while it don't explain any of the stuff the audience may have questions about. Despite the flaws it was a good movie, although Jackson carried the film.7.8/10

pepekwa once again, i am writing a review of a movie that I would normally have not have bothered to because of the absurd ratings and reviews this is getting from the small number of people who did bother to hit the keyboard. This is a dull movie and in today's modern journalism era where everything can be checked on google in seconds, it does surprise me this was even a true story, maybe someone was being economical with the facts. Along with the central plot of the champion being alive and homeless and not dead as thought,there's this sub-plot supposedly linked to these events about hartnett's dad who was also a journalist but you never saw him and you're not even told fully how he supposedly "wronged" his son and then there's his relationship with his own son and separation from his wife, again that is not explained, this apparently all comes together at the end, well it didn't for me and it was all OTT and schmaltzy anyway. My problem with Josh Hartnett is he is a bore, I've never met him but I bet he's got no personality, I don;t think I've seen one film he;s in that I've liked. If there was a saving grace to this film, it was samuel jackson ( a man who definitely has a personality) who was excellent as the homeless, deceiving bum, there was also a good cameo from teri hatcher and she should definitely have had a couple more scenes. Overall, ignore the film of the year ratings on here, there's a reason you barely heard of this and it was in theatres for just a couple of weeks, simply it wasn't very good.