Undisputed 2002

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: A lean, mean, vastly entertaining fight movie. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Listlessly directed and can't surmount the deja vu induced by the prison jumpsuits, tattoos, and scenes set near the community bench press. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: After a string of mediocre summer B movies like XXX and Blue Crush masquerading as big deals, it's refreshing to see an action-drama that doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Undisputed isn't exactly memorable, and as far as its prison setting goes, it has nothing on HBO's infinitely more brutal Oz. But as late-summer time killers go, you could do worse. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: I've got nobody to root for ... in a movie like this I want to root for one of the boxers in the ring. Read more

Dan Fienberg, L.A. Weekly: With flashbulb editing as cover for the absence of narrative continuity, Undisputed is nearly incoherent, an excuse to get to the closing bout ... by which time it's impossible to care who wins. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: It should have been more memorable, but at least it doesn't stumble in the ring. Read more

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times: At times, the picture seems to have been edited with a blowtorch. But it gets the job done efficiently and swiftly. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Coy but exhilarating, with really solid performances by Ving Rhames and Wesley Snipes. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: Amazingly lame. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Too slow for a younger crowd, too shallow for an older one. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Walter Hill's Undisputed, a boxing/prison picture as smart as it is brawny, shows what seasoned Hollywood pros can still accomplish without pretensions and overwhelming special effects. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: Undisputed may be the best hip-hop prison boxing movie ever, though I'm hard-pressed to name another one. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: A shrewd and splendidly volatile B movie structured around a highly original gambit of suspense. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Hill looks to be going through the motions, beginning with the pale script. Read more

Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News: While Undisputed isn't exactly a high, it is a gripping, tidy little movie that takes Mr. Hill higher than he's been in a while. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: An average B-movie with no aspirations to be anything more. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Walter Hill's Undisputed is like a 1940s Warner Bros. B picture, and I mean that as a compliment. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Walter Hill's prison-boxing flick Undisputed could have been a great B, but it represents a failure of nerve. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: For all of Hill's effort, Undisputed still seems routine, and its hold on the audience is casual. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Mike D'Angelo, Time Out: A lean, surprisingly artful programmer, closer in spirit to something like Don Siegel's Riot in Cell Block 11 than to typical boxing fare. Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: This is the kind of movie that gets a quick release before real contenders arrive in September. Read more

Robert Koehler, Variety: After a stretch of questionable projects like Last Man Standing and Supernova, Hill has rebounded with a boxing pic so purely pugilistic that nothing impinges on the main event. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: If Hill isn't quite his generation's Don Siegel (or Robert Aldrich), it's because there's no discernible feeling beneath the chest hair; it's all bluster and cliche. Read more