Details from IMDb:
The Fire Inside
Claressa Shields becomes the first American woman to win a gold medal, only to learn that not all dreams are created equal.
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Initial Thoughts:
I’ve always enjoyed boxing movies, and while looking at a list of the 163 best Black movies of the 21st century (on Rotten Tomatoes), I realized I hadn’t seen this one. Since it was on Prime Video, and my wife brought me down some popcorn, I gave it a watch this morning.
Main Points:
This movie does a great job of showing the strength of the human spirit and just how difficult it can be for a woman, in this case a black woman, to be recognized in a traditionally male-dominated sport. It also does a great job showing what it was like to live in Flint, Michigan, a place many people thought of as a ghost town with violence and dirty water (at least that’s most of what I knew about it). The acting is excellent, and the story is great. I found myself getting emotional at times and, of course, really rooting for Claressa (I don’t follow sports and knew nothing about her before watching this). The film also deals with important topics like poverty, the difficulty in choosing between family and success, crime and sexual abuse.
Final Thoughts:
The only issue with this movie is that I found the fight scenes often too short; I think the PG-13 rating perhaps hindered them. It was frustrating to have all this buildup to her going to the Olympics to fight, only to not see all the matches. I also thought that there should have been justice and exploration into the ramifications of sexual abuse and parental neglect/alcoholism. Claressa Shields is an incredible person who had to make hard choices and sacrifices, and in the end succeeded in not only winning two gold medals in a row, the only US athlete to ever do that, but also made important strides for equality for women in the world of boxing. If you can handle the mature themes here, I highly recommend this movie, solid 8 out of 10 from me. This movie is not for small children, with mature themes, some coarse language and violence, though no blood, ages 13+.