The Set-Up

Send us Fan MailIt’s a small, grimy, smoky, desperate film, just like the arena in which much of the action takes place. It’s either a prime example of film noir, or some form of noir with boxing and drama  thrown in. It has the heroic performances of two noir stalwarts who were more often cast as the miscreants in their films. It has a director who was successful in almost every genre and honored by his peers, but near the start of his directing career. Plus, a wonderful cast of supporting characters, the kind that the meme of Rick Dalton, pointing at the TV screen in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, would have been created for. What’s not to admire? It’s the boxing/drama/crime/noir The Set-Up. Is it a film noir or not? We’ll get there. Whichever, I admire its grimy look at tank town life, its unsympathetic view of the sweet science of boxing, the stories you’ll tell yourself as an aging athlete, and the entanglements that humans are wont to get into when there’s the sound of even a single buck dropping. Website and blog: www.thosewonderfulpeople.comBluesky: @wonderfulpeople.bsky.social