{"id":10479,"date":"2024-12-28T22:26:08","date_gmt":"2024-12-29T03:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=10479"},"modified":"2025-01-13T16:16:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T21:16:45","slug":"the-fire-inside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/28\/the-fire-inside\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fire Inside"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Fire Inside<\/strong> (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 MGM\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 109 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some strong language, thematic elements, brief suggestive material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rachel Morrison\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Barry Jenkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tamar-kali\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Rina Yang\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 25, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ryan Destiny, Brian Tyree Henry, Olunike Adeliyi, De\u2019Adre Aziza, Jazmin Headley, Idrissa Sanogo Bamba, Shechinah Mpumlwana, Sekhai Smith, Sarah Allen, Lanette Ware.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I expected The Fire Inside<\/strong> to be just another underdog sports drama in which an athlete defies the odds and proves herself to the world. It\u2019s that, but not just. It\u2019s so much more.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Rachel Morrison, the cinematographer who worked with Ryan Coogler on Fruitvale Station and Black Panther, makes her feature film directorial debut with The Fire Inside<\/strong>. It\u2019s the story of Claressa \u201cT-Rex\u201d Shields, the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing and the first American to win consecutive gold medals in the sport (in 2012 and 2016). She\u2019s played here by Ryan Destiny (Grown-ish) in a star-making performance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Born and raised in Flint, MI, Claressa finds a coach, mentor and father figure in Jason Crutchfield (Henry, the Spider-Verse films) who agrees to train the feisty 11YO after she shows him her stuff at the local gym where he\u2019s a volunteer coach. She\u2019s tough but vulnerable as shown by her backing away when he tries to touch her. She comes from a poor, broken home with two younger siblings, a father in prison and a drug addict mother (Adeliyi, Saw 3D). There\u2019s hardly ever food in the house and Mom often neglects her children to entertain guests. Things reach a point where Claressa goes to live with Jason and his family after her mother kicks her out.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although there\u2019s no money in it for him, Jason trains her rigorously for the 2012 Summer Olympics in China. Claressa isn\u2019t doing it just for the glory of winning. She wants to win for the money that will come from the endorsements that will surely follow should she take home the gold. She wants to be able to help her family. She wins as you already know, but the offers don\u2019t come. Jason tries to help, but he\u2019s out of his depth in this area. Also, nobody\u2019s interested because women\u2019s boxing is not a glamorous sport and Shields isn\u2019t exactly womanly. During an interview, she admits that she likes beating people up and making them cry. That\u2019s not what potential sponsors want to hear.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I may as well admit it. I get suckered in by inspirational sports dramas like Rocky, Chariots of Fire and Remember the Titans. You can add The Fire Inside<\/strong> to the list. It\u2019s a gritty drama brimming with realism. Morrison never attempts to make poverty look pretty. Claressa doesn\u2019t have it easy, before or after her 2012 victory. She still struggles to pay bills and help care for her sister\u2019s baby. What gets her through it is her tough, fighting spirit. At the same time, she\u2019s angry and bitter about getting the short end of the stick. She earned that gold medal. She deserves the same opportunities afforded to other athletes. She\u2019s especially livid about male athletes receiving stipends three times bigger than those offered to females. This becomes part of her fight as she prepares to train for the 2016 games.<\/p>\n

In the lead role, Destiny does a phenomenal job. She perfectly captures the fire inside Claressa, aka T-Rex because of her short arms. As Jason puts it, she \u201cain\u2019t got reach but is as fierce as they come.\u201d She proves this time and time again, inside the ring and out. She also shows Claressa\u2019s strong sense of family in the way she cradles her baby nephew and takes care of Mom\u2019s bills. Equally great is Henry as Coach Jason, a caring coach who refuses to ease up on her. He works hard trying to balance his day job as a cable guy and his own family while getting Claressa ready for the Olympics. It\u2019s heartbreaking when he can\u2019t join her in China because of the rules about sanctioned coaches only. The two actors have marvelous chemistry whether it\u2019s Jason making sure she keeps her eyes on the prize to them having a fight over his failing to get her any endorsements. The love and concern is always there.<\/p>\n

\u00a0My only complaint about The Fire Inside<\/strong> is the abrupt ending. I thought they would show Claressa training and competing in the 2016 games, but it ends before that. Instead, we\u2019re told the outcome by way of end titles. I would have liked to have seen more.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Still, The Fire Inside<\/strong> is a great movie. It\u2019s not too heavy-handed. It\u2019s well-acted by all. The screenplay by Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) is intelligent and well-written. Sure, it\u2019s rife with clich\u00e9s, but show me an underdog sports drama that isn\u2019t. The difference is that Morrison makes it all work. This is as solid a directorial debut as I\u2019ve ever seen. I really hope audiences turn up for The Fire Inside<\/strong>. It\u2019s one of the great ones.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fire Inside (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 MGM\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 109 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some strong language, thematic elements, brief suggestive material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rachel Morrison\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Barry Jenkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tamar-kali\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Rina Yang\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 25, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ryan Destiny, Brian Tyree Henry, Olunike Adeliyi, De\u2019Adre Aziza, Jazmin Headley, Idrissa Sanogo Bamba, Shechinah Mpumlwana, Sekhai Smith, Sarah […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/The-Fire-Inside-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10504,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10479\/revisions\/10504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}