Mark Reviews Movies: TIGER

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 29, 2018

Thankfully, Tiger isn't just another sports biography or underdog story. To be sure, it's both of those things, set in the world of amateur boxing, but the movie has bigger ambitions than telling a life story or fulfilling a list of clichés. The downside is that it allows formula to get in the way of those greater goals.

Michael Pugliese and star Prem Singh's screenplay is inspired by the true story of Pardeep Singh Nagra, a Canadian boxer who was barred from competition for refusing to shave his beard—a component of his Sikh faith. The movie's story is transferred to the United States, where Singh's Pardeep faces similar discrimination and legal proceedings.

Those two elements, not the boxing, make up the majority of this narrative, and it's a refreshing change from what we might expect. There are bouts, of course, breezed through only so that we know Pardeep is a real contender, but mostly, the story is about the American Boxing Association and rival competitors trying to keep Pardeep out of the ring, while he, his coach Frank (Mickey Rourke), and his attorney Charlotte (Janel Parrish), who happens to be Frank's daughter, try to get him into it.

There's a potentially strong conflict here between the traditions of the two sides of the legal battle, with the central issue—seemingly apparent, at least based on the law of the story's adopted country—being which tradition is more fundamental and which one is infringing on the other. All of that is reduced, though, to a lot of sentiments about freedom and a passing concern with Sikhism, juxtaposed with the covert or overt prejudice of side characters and extras.

The stronger story, surprisingly, is about the boxing—or, more specifically, the relationship between Pardeep and Frank, a former pugilist who has developed Parkinson's. Rourke gives a vulnerable, naturalistic performance that seems out of place with the rest of the movie, which doesn't have time for such subtlety. Instead, most of Pardeep's time outside of court and the ring is left to an obligatory romance with Charlotte, whose ex-boyfriend just happens to be the boxer Pardeep faces in his big match.

Tiger is filled with such obvious, formulaic elements. It's more concerned with those, in order to provide a simple and feel-good story, than with the specifics of its subject, his challenges, and his faith.

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