I just watched Phantom Punch which is a movie about Sonny Liston. I wasn't so much interested in Sonny Liston as I was interested in seeing a new movie from the director Robert Townsend and intrigued by what seemed like a pretty good cast in Ving Rhames, Stacey Dash, Nicholas Turturro, David Proval and Bridgette Wilson-Sampras.

However the movie is never really believable. It doesn't draw you in and I'm not sure why. Part of it could be the inconsistent depiction of segregation. On one hand we do see the racism and bigotry from police (especially) and media that was endemic at the time. The idea that police could casually call a man's wife out of her name or newspaper writers could throw around monkey jokes is astounding.

On the other hand we see Liston moving freely in Las Vegas or St. Louis nightclubs and casinos but Las Vegas did not end segregation in casinos until 1960, well after Liston had started his career. In addition, although Rhames captures the fear and intimidation that Liston evidently engendered in his opponents, the script never gives Rhames enough to work with. We never know WHY Liston was so scary or what drove him. While Rhames can play menacing better than anyone, at this point he's maybe 5-10 years too old to play Liston.

Because we never know why Liston frightened people so much the shocking nature of his loss to Muhammad Ali never translates to the viewer. It's just ho-hum. And speaking of Ali, can you really have a movie depiction of a man known as the Mouth from the South and not have him speak a single line of dialogue? Epic Fail. The fight scenes are shockingly bad. Completely unbelievable. Really bad, I say.

Turturro plays Liston's mob connection/friend and David Proval is Turturro's boss. Proval does scary almost as well as Rhames. Stacey Dash and Bridgette Wilson are the love interests.

Dash and Wilson are probably the best things about the movie but it's not for their acting ability.

Liston's death was quite suspicious and was thought by some to be mob connected. Men who are scared of needles don't die of "heroin overdoses" especially when the autopsy doesn't reveal enough morphine in his body for an overdose. The movie's take is that it was mob connected but also for the most obvious and primal reason.

This movie was based in part on a book by Rob Steen. I would like to read that book.

I would give this film 2 out of 5 stars. I guess most of the blame would have to go to the director and writer(s). I still can't believe that a cast that good was in a movie that turned out like this. I would almost want to see this remade with mostly the same cast but a different director/writer. And no the movie does not resolve whether Liston took a dive in the second fight against Ali.