Review

Meg Ryan draws the collar, going 0 for 3 in her recent attempts to flush America's Sweetheart image from her and the moviegoing public's system in this latest movie makeover. While not as dreadful as its reviews and awful box-office returns would suggest, this long-on-the-shelf boxing tale features Meg as the real-life Jackie Kallen, a secretary who bucks the system and chauvinism in order to break into the male dominated boxing game. Wearing tight leather outfits and spouting as many obscenities as a PG-13 rating would allow her to, Ryan's Cleveland-based Kallen finds herself up against an assortment of male creeps and would-be thugs who stand in her way of getting a fair shake in the ring. She takes a talented but troubled boxer (Epps) under her wing and, with the help of former trainer (and the film’s director) Dutton, manages to lead to middleweight champion contention. The only thing standing in her way is the meanest of all of her male nemeses, a mob-connected promoter played by the ubiquitous Shalhoub. It's cliché city all the way, but some nifty in-the-ring segments and likable spunk by Ryan keep things floating -- but certainly not like a butterfly -- at a serviceable TV movie level. Ultimately, however, the female empowerment angle is dropped for some dopey beyond-the-rope plot complications that include Epps angrily firing the publicity-obsessed Ryan as his main woman, a poorly thought-out altercation between Meg and her associate (Washington) and a phony finale that finds friends and foes alike clapping for Meg after she rumbles into the ring to talk some sense into Epps during a big bout. Some of these inane sequences smack of decisions made by the studio after they looked at some critical test screening scores. It's not hard to surmise that there's an edgier boxing film in here somewhere that coulda been a contender.

 -- Irv Slifkin