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THE FIRE INSIDE

"Everyone Needs Someone in His Corner"

What You Need To Know:

THE FIRE INSIDE tells the story of Olympic boxer Clarissa Shields. The movie focuses on her struggles both inside and outside the ring. It follows her journey from her early training days at age 11, starting in 2006, to her personal and professional struggles up to and including 2016. For example, lucrative endorsements don’t come her way after some boxing success. This leaves her still struggling in poverty. She perseveres, however. An epilogue discloses her tremendous success after 2016, a high point in her Olympic career.

THE FIRE INSIDE is superbly written, directed and acted. It has terrific rousing moments of victory as Claressa goes for the gold at the 2012 Olympics. However, it also has heartbreaking moments of personal and professional struggle, and inspiring, heartwarming moments of family and human friendship. Those heartbreaking and heartwarming moments extol Claressa’s hard work, determination, discipline, and heart. However, THE FIRE INSIDE has many light obscenities and more than several strong obscenities and profanities. The movie is also slightly marred by some prideful moments and light political correctness, feminism and revisionist history. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.

Content:

(BB, PP, PC, AP, Fe, RH, C, LLL, VV, S, N, A, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:
Strong moral worldview about 16-, 17- and 20-year-old Olympic female boxer Claressa Shields who proudly represents the United States , but there is some politically correct content later about the social problems in Flint, Michigan, especially for poor people, plus some light feminist elements about female Olympic boxers getting equal stipends as the male boxers and about female boxers not getting the same amount of respect as their male counterparts and some feminist anger toward female beach volleyball players getting so much attention because of their physical looks during the volleyball matches, and there’s some revisionist history (for example, the movie doesn’t overtly mention Claressa’s Christian conversion and baptism at age 13 and only vaguely shows her possibly praying before one match), but the movie does show her coach wearing a Cross necklace and kissing the Cross before one of her boxing matches, and it also shows her boyfriend looking up toward God when Claressa wins an important match;

Foul Language:
About 41 obscenities (mostly relatively light obscenities but containing one “f” word and more than several “s” words), two GD profanities, and three light profanities;

Violence:
Lots of boxing matches, with many punches thrown, but nothing really graphic or bloody, and teenage girl’s mother has a party and one of the adult men wants to dance with her, but she punches him and knocks him out, so her mother kicks her out of the house;

Sex:
Teenagers kiss on a bed with the boy having his shirt off, but girl stops him from going further though there’s lightly implied fornication later between them after Prom Night with the boy having his shirt off then too, plus teenage girl tells her boyfriend one of her mother’s boyfriends sexually abused her as a child, and so she wants to take things slow with him, and her teenage sister gets pregnant and raises the baby, sometimes with help from her;

Nudity:
Upper male nudity in two scenes;

Alcohol Use:
Man drinks beer occasionally and adults are drinking at a party;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
Adults sometimes smoke but there are no drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:
Pride becomes one of the main character’s character traits, in addition to hard work, determination, discipline, and heart or spirit.

More Detail:

Sports movies often make for some of the best, most entertaining movies because of the inherit nature of a person, or group of people, achieving success and victory at the most climactic moments of a story. THE FIRE INSIDE offers this in spades, but it also offers something more – a story with profound depth and personal grit, determination, discipline, and heart.

THE FIRE INSIDE tells the story of Olympic boxer Clarissa Shields, focusing on her struggles both inside and outside the ring, from her early training days starting in 2006 to her personal and professional struggles up to and including 2016. THE FIRE INSIDE has terrific, rousing moments of Olympic boxing, heartbreaking moments of personal and professional struggle, and heartwarming moments of family and human friendship, with a strong moral worldview, but it’s marred by lots of foul language and some light prideful moments.

The movie opens in Flint, Michigan in 2006. Claressa Shields, nearly 11, keeps jogging to a nearby boxing gym run by Jason Critchfield, a former professional boxer. However, Jason keeps telling her to go away, saying he only trains boy boxers. However, she keeps showing up at the gym, which is a long run from her home. So, he can’t help but admire and chuckle at her determination and refusal to take no for an answer. So, he gives her a chance and soon seriously begins training her to box.

Cut to six years later, and Claressa is ready to qualify for the Olympic boxing trials in Shanghai, China for the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Under Jason’s great coaching, she qualifies for the trial, but he doesn’t have the money to go to China with her, even though she has a good chance being the prime contender. Her only physical drawback? She has short arms, hence a shorter reach for her punches, but she earns the moniker T-Rex for her ferocious determination in the ring.

Claressa makes the Olympics, but she’s the lowest scorer at the trials because she lost her match against a taller opponent with a longer reach from England. Can Jason find a way to get to the London Olympics to help Claressa win the Gold? And, if she wins, will Claressa get the endorsements that can lift her and her family out of poverty?

THE FIRE INSIDE is superbly written, directed and acted. It has terrific rousing moments of victory as Claressa goes for the gold at the 2012 Olympics. However, it also has heartbreaking moments of personal and professional struggle, and inspiring, heartwarming moments of family and human friendship. Those heartbreaking and heartwarming moments extol Claressa’s hard work, determination, discipline, and heart. At one point, her coach, Jason, tells her she’s got more heart, discipline and determination than anyone in her family. Those heartbreaking and heartwarming moments also have some light political correctness and feminism, but nothing really radical. In fact, the movie clearly shows that Claressa is proud to be an Olympic gold medalist for the United States. For example, in one scene, she and the other American athletes enthusiastically cheer American swimmer Michael Phelps when he wins a Gold Medal in one of his events in London.

All that said, THE FIRE INSIDE has a lot of relatively light foul language and several strong obscenities and profanities. It also has light sexual immorality in two scenes between the teenage Claressa and her boyfriend. THE FIRE INSIDE also has some light political correctness, including some feminism and revisionist history. For example, the movie doesn’t mention Claressa’s Christian conversion and baptism at age 13, or her continued commitment to her faith, which includes praying before every match. Finally, of course, the movie has lots of boxing violence, but none of it is graphic.

All in all, therefore, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.

One thing MOVIEGUIDE® really likes about THE FIRE INSIDE, though, is the compassionate support and friendship Claressa receives from her coach, Jason Crutchfield, in the movie. Their relationship is really quite beautiful. It shows that everyone needs someone in his corner. Of course, the movie would have been even better if it had shown more strongly how Jesus is the transcendent and imminent God, who looks out for you, if you accept Him as your personal Savior.


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