Great cast, shame about the no-hope script in this oddball boxing satirical comedy. Samuel L Jackson flamboyantly plays the Rev Fred Sultan, a dodgy boxing promoter who realises the public is tiring of his black prize-fighter (Damon Wayans), so he pits him against a dumb white contender (Peter Berg).

The set-up intrigues and there are one or two laughs early on, but the entertainment soon runs out and about half an hour of this movie is enough before weariness sets in big time.

Jackson, Berg and Jeff Goldblum (as Mitchell Kane, the leader of a documentary team investigating Sultan for fraud) are in there fighting to save the movie.

You expect a lot more from Ron Shelton, writer of Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump and Cobb.