The pugilist
Job description: 'I get knocked down, but I get up again' could well be the theme song for the pugnacious pugilist, an Everyman extraordinaire and plug-ugly underdog who excels at prevailing over adversity - usually in slow motion, awash with fake blood, and amid the swell of triumphant trumpets. We get suckered every time into falling for these bruised and battered working-class heroes. Must be some kind of punch-drunk love.
Most recently seen in: The Cinderella Man. When Russell Crowe (below) wasn't trying to punch people in real life, he found time to star in Ron Howard's retelling of the story of James J. Braddock, New Jersey's Bulldog of Bergen and a fighter dubbed the Cinderella Man by the late Damon Runyon. Braddock is almost down for the count, breaking his hand while enduring a nasty defeat, just as the Depression is kicking in. He's got a long-suffering wife (Renee Zellweger), three kids and no cash. Then, his manager miraculously wangles him a fight with ruthless champ Max Baer (Craig Bierko), who's already killed two men in the ring. Up for grabs is the then princely purse of US$250. Braddock takes the fight. You can work out the rest.
Most likely to say: 'For $250 I'd fight your wife!'
Classics of the genre: They don't come much more brutal and bloody than Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, made amid a blizzard of cocaine abuse, studio indifference and a creative dark night of the soul. For many critics, it's the greatest boxing flick ever put to celluloid. Robert De Niro hits the zenith of his Method genius as tormented bruiser Jake La Motta. The fight scenes sing like the grandest opera, and De Niro started the trend of actors gaining scary amounts of weight to lend authenticity to their characters. Rod Serling's 1962 Requiem for a Heavyweight, starring Anthony Quinn as an ageing boxer and Jackie Gleason as his sleazy manager, is well worth a look, not least for cameos by Muhammad Ali and Jack Dempsey. On the Waterfront should be mentioned, if only for Marlon Brando's 'I coulda been a contender' speech. And then there's the shameless tearjerker The Champ, foisted on us by Franco Zeffirelli, and starring John Voight as a punch-drunk prizefighter and the insufferably cute Ricky Schroder as his little boy.
Ultimate avatar: There can be only one. His whole life was a million-to-one shot, and his name is Rocky. John G. Avildsen directs, but all anyone remembers is the bumbling bravura turn that shot Sylvester Stallone to stardom as Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion. The 1976 sleeper hit was shot in a record 28 days, and Stallone reportedly wrote the script in a three-day creative frenzy. He demanded to star in the film in a make-or-break deal, when the studio wanted to cast Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds or James Caan. The gruesomely slow-motion fight scenes, the facial contortions, the raw-meat face and Rocky's poignant cries of 'Yo Adrian' will live forever in cinema history. The first time I saw it, with my brother, we got home and beat the crap out of each other, and you can't say better than that.
Not to be confused with: Rocky and Bullwinkle, Cinderella, Girlfight!