Bruised – Film Review

Jackie Justice (Halle Berry) is a mixed martial arts fighter who leaves the sport in disgrace. Down on her luck and simmering with rage and regret years after her fight, she’s coaxed into a brutal underground fight by her manager and boyfriend Desi (Adan Canto) and grabs the attention of a fight league promoter (Shamier Anderson) who promises Jackie a life back in the octagon. But the road to redemption becomes unexpectedly personal when Manny (Danny Boyd, Jr.) — the son she gave up as an infant — shows up at her doorstep.

The biggest takeaway I had from Bruised was that Halle Berry is a shockingly great director. Seriously, she’s great behind the camera and her performance here as Jackie Justice is equally wonderful to watch and proves that all these years later, Berry’s still got it. Sadly, though, I wish I could praise Bruised as a whole the same way I’m praising Berry’s work on the project because the film as a whole suffers greatly from a predictable and oftentimes boring script that feels significantly longer than it needs to be, filled with unnecessary subplots, and too many tropes to forgive.

Why does every sports drama have to have some huge “hype-up” montage sequence where the lead character fails for a long time and then gets incredibly skilled in just a few scenes? This happens in far too many movies and, you guessed it, Bruised does the same exact thing. And as mentioned earlier, it’s also painfully predictable. It becomes crystal clear very early on what’s going to ultimately go down in the final act which is a shame.

But we all know the term “the journey is what counts” which I also subscribe to – sadly, the journey here isn’t all that interesting. While there is a surprising amount of character development and depth given to Jackie Justice, the film doesn’t really give us a reason to care for her plight. The whole storyline and revenge aspect of the film just feels so forced and unnecessary. This movie really should’ve taken a page from Creed – that was a movie that gave the audience a genuine reason to care for Michael B. Jordan. When you watch Creed, you want him to win all the fights he enters. It’s genuinely annoying when films tell us we should care about someone solely because they are the main character.

It’s really just the typical underdog sports movie where the lead goes through some trials and tribulations and slowly but surely makes her way to the top with some challenges along the way. It’s nothing new and that’s one of the film’s biggest sins. At least give us something of interest that we haven’t seen before. As mentioned earlier, Berry is absolutely stellar and legitimately intimidating in the role of Jackie Justice. She brings a ton of physicality to the role and you can tell that she was passionate about her performance.

And she’s also wonderful behind the camera. It’s actually kind of remarkable just how good of a director she is – I just wish I could’ve seen this style of directing in a significantly better movie because, although she plays a character named Jackie Justice, this movie doesn’t do Berry’s talent any justice.