BANG BANG (2025) - Mark Reviews Movies

Bang Bang, Sunrise Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 11, 2025

Everyone else he knew in the sport has moved on in some way or died, but former boxer Bernard "Bang Bang" Rozyski (Tim Blake Nelson) doesn't even seem to know what to do with his day-to-day life. He lives in a house that seems to falling apart in the middle of a Detroit neighborhood that's in a similar state, and with nothing to do but exercise as if he's maintaining his weight for a fight that's never coming and spend whatever money he comes across on booze, the man's surely falling apart, too. Bang Bang follows this character as he tries to figure out some way to make some sort of difference, but he keeps hitting a wall every time.

This isn't to say Bernard and his goals are noble in any way. It's quite the opposite, as the opening sequence shows and the rest of the story proves.

We eventually learn some background details about the guy, thanks to his own words and the fact that he once was famous enough—before becoming a bit infamous in the boxing world—to have an online encyclopedia page dedicated to his career. When he was a professional pugilist, Bernard's record was quite good. He even had a title shot, which turned out to be the thing that, ironically, ruined his career. Bernard won, but his opponent might have intentionally lost.

This is why one of the first things Bernard tries to do in this story, from screenwriter Will Janowitz, is kill his old foe. He's Darnell Washington (Glenn Plummer), by the way, whose life and work continued beyond boxing. He became a spokesperson for a well-selling blender, and now, he's running for mayor of the city. Obviously, Darnell knew that the world of boxing was about more than just the sport itself, and that's something Bernard, who was raised only to care about fighting and winning in the ring, never learned.

All of this seems important, and it is, obviously. It's also, however, only back story for a narrative that raises several conflicts and, smartly and sadly, keeps returning to the plain fact that the only conflict that matters is one being fought inside Bernard's own mind.

He may hate Darnell for possibly taking a dive and apparently suffering only a minor setback to his continuing success. He may resent his daughter Jen (Nina Arianda), his only child from three marriages, for not understanding her old man and, near the start of the film, sticking him with her son teenage Justin (Andrew Liner) so she can take a job in Chicago. He may see his grandson as a boxer-in-the-making, just needing a bit of training and an opportunity to get in the ring, and see the kid's own success as a way to prove that he still has something to offer the sport.

There are abundant conflicts and potentials here, but at no point through any of them does Bernard stop once to think that, maybe, the problem isn't everyone else. He was never taught or trained to do so, and that's the ultimate tragedy of director Vincent Grashaw's film.

A great character actor, Nelson loses himself in this role, giving the mental impression of a man who has given up on everything but the physicality of one who's ready for the fight he knows is coming. At this point, he knows that because he'll probably be the one to start it. Bernard is angry, bitter, and seems to be constantly hoping that someone will say something that gives him the justification to throw a punch.

When he shows up at an event in a church for Darnell's mayoral campaign with a pistol, the only thing that stops him from shooting his old opponent, beyond the sight of an old flame and the candidate's granddaughter, might be that Darnell doesn't even notice him. If the feud is not personal or even a consideration for Darnell, why should Bernard even bother?

The plot that just emerges from this character study is that Bernard, who gets into a scuffle with his grandson's supervisor on a community-service stint, spots a spark of fight in Justin. It's obvious when the teen stands up for his grandfather and puts his boss in a stranglehold, so Bernard calls upon his old friend and retired boxer John (Kevin Corrigan), who now drives a limo, to let the pair use the gym his buddy's family owns. The grandfather trains the grandson, keeping it all from Jen, and Bernard arranges a match for Justin.

Janowitz has everything in place, in other words, for a redemption story—a second chance for Bernard, in which he can put his past behind him and look toward a future for himself and his grandson. Whether or not any of that actually works out for either of them is irrelevant in two ways.

First, the film is more interested in Bernard, his history, and his behavior than any formulaic sports tale. Second, the filmmakers and Nelson establish this man, who spends an entire night hanging out with strangers in the mansion he once owned just to wallow in the misery of everything he lost, so well that it's not a question of if things will go wrong. It's only one of how Bernard will mess it up for himself, as well as how badly everyone around him will suffer as a consequence.

Despite his many past and present mistakes, Bang Bang does find considerable sympathy for Bernard. By the end of the film, we have seen him at his worst, caught a glimpse of how he could better himself, and come to realize that he's just a guy who only ever learned to fight. We can't really blame him for not knowing how to choose those fights.

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