The Fire Inside delivers a much better than expected entry into the crowded boxing movie space

What do you do to make the boxing movie distinctive in 2024? This sports movie subgenre eternally exists in the shadow of the Rocky movies. Then there's the impact of other titles like Million Dollar Baby or Raging Bull. There's a great legacy here, which is both a blessing and a curse. Goodness knows countless modern films ranging from Grudge Match to Day of the Fight has failed to conjure up anything new in this crowded cinematic field. Cinematographer Rachel Morrison’s directorial debut The Fire Inside doesn’t exactly rewrite the book on boxing films. But she and screenwriter Barry Jenkins do give them a welcome tune-up.

Claressa "T-Rex" Shields (Ryan Destiny) hung around Jason Crutchfield's (Brian Tyree Henry) boxing training sessions even after this man informed her that he didn't train girls. Shields is persistent, though. You have to be when you call Flint, Michigan home. Crutchfield quickly takes Shields under his wing and, as The Fire Inside begins, the duo prepares for something that once sounded like a far-off fantasy. The pair are gearing up for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Shields, if she wins certain rounds of fighting, will go to these London-set games and represent America.

Always lingering on this boxer's mind as she pushes her body to the limits is helping her family. Shields comes from a challenging home where she and her two siblings lived with a mother struggling with both addiction and putting food on the table. With the Olympics come potential sponsorship deals and other lucrative ways of getting her loved ones out of poverty. The Fire Inside depicts Shields using her tremendous skills in the ring to make sports history. However, that’s not enough to fend off reality's most uncomfortable aspects. Financial instability can’t be warded away with a pair of boxing gloves. Nor can the standard gender roles for how women athletes are “supposed” to behave.

A fascinating flourish in The Fire Inside is how little we see of Shields finishing up her boxing matches. For typical sports dramas, that would be unheard of. How could you make a feature where you don’t see the lead score a slam dunk or kick a soccer ball into the goal? Cutting away from these resolutions in the Jenkins screenplay, though, establishes Fire Inside’s creative priorities. Immediate emotional catharsis is swapped out for messier depictions of what it’s like to make history…and then return to normalcy.  This movie isn’t about the punches Shields lands on other women. It’s about what occurs outside the ring. Boxing is just one piece of this woman’s larger puzzle.

This is especially apparent in a third act that shifts the action back to Flint, Michigan where Shields and Crutchfield struggle to parlay boxing achievements into larger financial stability. The glitz of the cameras and Olympics has long faded, and Shields is back to standing with her mom in waiting rooms or scrambling for items in local grocery stores. This compelling drama is accentuated in its effectiveness by how corporate obstacles manifest for our lead characters. Crutchfield has a memorable meeting with a corporate figure who can’t stop blabbering about how he’s “a fan” of Shields and all her sports exploits.

Once the pleasantries are out of the way, though, this friendly face declares that a woman boxer isn’t marketable. “People want women playing volleyball or swimming,” he explains in a soft but firm voice. Crutchfield and the audience see here a supposedly encouraging figure quickly curdling into another reinforcer of restrictive gender norms. Toxicity comes in many forms, including ones grinning and quick to tell you how much they adore your work. This unique form of conflict for a mainstream sports movie helps solidify The Fire Inside’s distinctive creative identity.

Morrison and cinematographer Rina Yang's sharp visual impulses also lend extra layers of memorability to The Fire Inside. There's a great wide shot of Shields after learning Crutchfield can't make it to an important match, sitting despondently in a backroom. Darkened shadows loom behind her, while, in front of her, a massive open door beams bright light onto the frame’s left side. These striking visual qualities encapsulate the precarious place Shields is in right now. Will she succumb to her angst related to the past or follow the tantalizing opportunities in the future? That’s all vividly realized within this shot.

Deftly maintained single-take shots of Shields training or duking it out with opponents are also executed with confidence. Morrison’s cinematography work on films like Black Panther and Mudbound was rife with precisely orchestrated imagery. It’s fantastic to see her maintain that in her Fire Inside directing. Plus, Yang also leaves a tremendous impression as a cinematographer.

These greatest facets of The Fire Inside, unfortunately, make it mildly frustrating when more standard sports movie impulses creep in. Even something subverting this mold can’t resist dabbling in tropes titles like Invincible or We Are Marshall revel in. More pressingly, the extended members of our lead character’s family tend to vanish into the background. Shields has two siblings that fade in and out of the movie to a distracting degree. Poignant moments involving her brother and sister would land better if The Fire Inside made these characters register more as discernible personalities.

These foibles are, thankfully, drastically overshadowed by superior qualities like Tamar-kali’s outstanding score (she really is one of the best film composers working today) and a pair of excellent lead performances. Ryan Destiny, in her most prolific film role to date, shines as Shields, especially in her subtle physicality. An early scene where she's talking to a potential lover about sexual trauma she's experienced proves so heartbreaking because of Destiny’s subdued yet aching body language. Shields is a buttoned-up person in The Fire Inside, she doesn’t express emotions in an outsized fashion. Destiny gracefully maintains that quality here while communicating the horrors Shields has endured. It’s a tremendous sequence encapsulating her gifts as a performer.

As for Brian Tyree Henry, between If Beale Street Could Talk, Causeway, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and even a key scene in this year's Transformers One, he's become a master of compelling movie monologues. When Henry talks, you immediately listen up. That talent is put to great use in his role as Crutchfield. The instantly absorbing quality of Henry’s line deliveries makes it apparent why Shields would gravitate towards this man as a coach and surrogate father figure. Henry gives this role his all while inhabiting a genre artists often sleep-walk through. He and other key Fire Inside personnel like Morrison, Jenkins, Destiny, and Yang, though, punch above the typical sports movie weight class to deliver something special.