This hysterically bad TV movie takes the cliches of "Golden Boy", "Body and Soul", "Champion" and "The Set-Up" (my favorite of all of these), mixes in a lot of the "Rocky" movies (the third installment came out the year this aired on TV), and comes up with what could have been a camp classic. Erik Estrada revisits his Puerto Rican roots from Harlem by playing a Puerto Rican boxer from Harlem, meets his variation of Barbara Stanwyck in Morgan Fairchild, and begins to rise to the top.
"I'm nobody squeezed. I make my own decisions", she tells him, adding on, "You're just another can of beer to me." There's an obvious lust between Estrada and Fairchild, and certainly, they are a great looking pair on screen. He gets to show off his body very nicely, particularly in a pair of tight red briefs that leaves little to the imagination.
But, as there are already a lot of cliches in films about boxing anyway, there are stereotypes here, especially when she shows up unannounced at his family's door and brings in a bunch of neighbor kids to pretend to be his large family of siblings even though he only has three others. Later, she finds Estrada's estranged father (Hector Elizondo) which creates a lot of drama that he didn't want to have to deal with.
Yvonne Wilder, one of the Shark girls in the movie of "West Side Story", and the "must be prom night" shoe store commercial mother, is hysterical as Estrada's mother, tough talking and loving, laughing inwardly as Fairchild comes in and demands that Estrada remain at home, having just bemoaned the fact that one of her babies was leaving. So while the cliches and some of the stereotypes of how Puerto Rican families are can be a bit eye-rolling, the film is fun on a strictly entertainment level, and of course, the eye candy of the scantily-clad Estrada will keep your eyes glued to the screen.
"I'm nobody squeezed. I make my own decisions", she tells him, adding on, "You're just another can of beer to me." There's an obvious lust between Estrada and Fairchild, and certainly, they are a great looking pair on screen. He gets to show off his body very nicely, particularly in a pair of tight red briefs that leaves little to the imagination.
But, as there are already a lot of cliches in films about boxing anyway, there are stereotypes here, especially when she shows up unannounced at his family's door and brings in a bunch of neighbor kids to pretend to be his large family of siblings even though he only has three others. Later, she finds Estrada's estranged father (Hector Elizondo) which creates a lot of drama that he didn't want to have to deal with.
Yvonne Wilder, one of the Shark girls in the movie of "West Side Story", and the "must be prom night" shoe store commercial mother, is hysterical as Estrada's mother, tough talking and loving, laughing inwardly as Fairchild comes in and demands that Estrada remain at home, having just bemoaned the fact that one of her babies was leaving. So while the cliches and some of the stereotypes of how Puerto Rican families are can be a bit eye-rolling, the film is fun on a strictly entertainment level, and of course, the eye candy of the scantily-clad Estrada will keep your eyes glued to the screen.