The Featherweight 
Directed by Robert Kolodny
Written by Steve Loff
Starring: James Madio, Ruby Wolf, Keir Gilchrist, Ron Livingston
Unrated
Runtime: 97 minutes
Limited theatrical release starting September 20

by Kevin Murphy, Staff Writer

Willie Pep is not a household name these days, neither nationally nor in his home state of Connecticut. It was, once–he was featherweight champion of the world, his wins numbering more than the combined total of Muhammad Ali, Rocky Marciano, and Floyd Mayweather. Celebrities wanted to meet with him, and Frank Sinatra frequently attended his fights. But that was then, more than 65 years ago, and even shortly after his retirement, Willie Pep was beginning to fade from memory.

Despite living for most of my life just one town away from Willie Pep’s birthplace, I didn’t know his name before I saw the trailer for the film; I’m not familiar with boxing and even less so with its history. To prepare for this movie, I wanted to know a bit more about the man at the center of it, so I got in touch with one of my friends who follows the sport–Sean Crose, another Connecticut local and writer for Boxing Insider–who gave his humble opinion that Willie Pep was one of the top three boxers of all time in any division. I asked him to elaborate, but he referred me to a friend of his who knew more about Pep: the boxer “Iceman” John Scully, a world-class fighter through the 90s, who worked on the film training James Madio in boxing for the lead role. 

Scully is also from Connecticut, and was very proud that this was a major figure from his hometown, as opposed to the bigger cities like New York or Chicago. Adding to Scully’s perspective is his friendship with Willie Pep; he showed me a photo of the two of them together from an event in 1992, and he was a pallbearer at Pep’s funeral in 2006. 

When I asked Scully what was so special about the champion, he mentioned Pep’s astonishing record (229 wins, 11 losses, 1 draw), as well as his feat of having two winning streaks of over 60 fights each. Scully also connected me with the film’s writer and producer, Steven Loff, who expanded on this, saying that Willie Pep is “probably the greatest athlete to come from Connecticut,” but that he was relatively obscure compared to many of the other all-time great boxers, even from that era.

Everything that I learned from speaking to these attached to the film reinforced their familiarity with the subject and devotion to getting things right. It took fifteen years to get it on the screen, and the enthusiasm that Loff had while discussing the process is represented within the film itself, as is the amount of research done. He talked about the time spent searching through microfiche archives of newspaper records, of their efforts to film on location in Hartford, and the limited budget they had to work with.

It pays off, all the more so thanks to how the film is framed like a documentary in direct cinema style, which is awkward but also lends an air of authenticity to it. From the start, The Featherweight sells this so cleanly that it’s easy to ignore those moments where it might not realistically work. Characters speak directly to the camera, and there are people responding from behind it. Loff says that this was a decision that they hoped would catch the attention of people because it’s so uncommon outside of comedies like The Office and This is Spinal Tap.

The authenticity is mostly artifice, of course, but built around facts. It’s not a direct retelling of events, according to Loff, but relies upon what he had been told by surviving family and friends, as well as the columns in the Hartford Courant of sports writer Bill Lee, a close friend of Pep’s. It’s true that he was living in Hartford, having moved from New York with his fourth wife, and some of the circumstances of his relationship with his son and sister; the film builds a fictional story around this situation that captures the man as a character. This approach is a welcome change from typical biographical films that contain a string of major incidents without strong connective tissue, and another part of why it works is when this story takes place in the life of its subject.

This is not the Willie Pep fighting for the title of champion, but rather a man years removed from the sport and struggling to have a life after doing the only thing he knew for decades. There’s a very telling scene early on where Pep is showing off his memorabilia. He talks about the photos of him with other boxers, and his prized possession of the gloves he was wearing when he overcame Chalky Wright to become featherweight champion. “I sold off all my other stuff,” he says, just in passing, and it speaks volumes about his financial situation, as well as his stubborn insistence on believing in those glory days despite them being long gone. He’s surrounded by old men who celebrate him, and younger people who don’t know him. 

All of this comes together to make for a work that truly feels like a lens on someone who’s trying to struggle back up the hill he’s slid down–an actual person, or the image thereof, rather than a wholly fictional character. This heart of the film is well-realized by James Madio in the lead role, trying to keep a rein on his emotions and his masculinity at a point when he’s not able to provide as a husband or father. Madio’s investment in the role is apparent–his own father told him that it was the role he was born to play, and it was his interest in playing the character that sparked the making of the film back in 2008.

The rest of the cast is strong as well. Stephen Lang rocks yet another supporting role, commanding his screen time while never stealing the show, and Ron Livingston remains a welcome supporting presence as well as Pep’s manager. Ruby Wolf makes a stellar debut here, too, as the wife who is stuck in a life she didn’t expect and where she doesn’t fit. She has some of the film’s best emotional moments when she’s just talking to the camera by herself, as well as great scenes with Keir Gilchrist, who plays Pep’s heroin-addicted son from a previous marriage who is constantly in conflict with his stepmother.

The film’s weaknesses mostly stem from its small budget. The handheld camera style is most awkward when it becomes too shaky and unsteady, and the mocked-up broadcast footage from the earlier fights slides now and then into an uncanny valley where it does not capture the visual style of the era like it wants to. These don’t have a significant impact on the experience of the film, though, because they are so often overshadowed by the strengths of its performances and story. 

As the name implies, this is not in the weight class of some of its higher-budget cousins like Raging Bull or The Fighter, and it doesn’t aspire to be. Instead, it’s a smaller work that delivers emotionally thanks to strong performances and the choice to focus not on the rise and fall of a young champion but the comeback of someone well past his prime. It’s a film that speaks about aging masculinity, and turns a spotlight on someone who’s been in the dark for decades.