Though “RevoLOUtion” has more than its share of sappy moments, Bret Carr plays the title role of Lou Benedetti with so much passion that you can’t help but wear a smile throughout most of the film … and Lou’s really not even nice guy.
The film’s focus falls on Lou, who has a speech impediment, and his boxing career, which is ending because he’s been hit in the head one too many times. The stuttering homophobe finds himself between a rock and a hard place as he’s forced to either work in a pet store for a homosexual, or engage in underground fights that may kill him. What he really wants to do, however, is train other boxers, but the owner of the gym dashes that dream when he tells him nobody will hire him with a speech problem because he “scares” the other young fighters, which seems unlikely as these fighters appear to be in their twenties and not in the sixth grade.
The aforementioned sap is one huge flaw in this movie, but in the end it doesn’t really matter. When Lou’s character completes his arc, you’re right there with him cheering. It may be a bit unbelievable, but Carr plays it well enough to transcend that. Lou went from miserable to loving life, and all he needed was to let someone beat the crap out of him. That beating is one of those movie moments that has power behind it, where you can feel the energy crackling off the screen as anything can happen, and that is directly attributed to Carr and the young actor opposite him. That single moment makes the sap sort of fade away, and though it does surface again, it doesn’t seem nearly as bad.
“RevoLOUtion” may not be the “life changing” movie some critics have made it out to be, but it’s definitely a film worth viewing at least once. It will leave all but the most jaded feeling satisfied, and that’s no small feat when you consider what a mess it almost turned out to be.
