Director: Aaron Leong
Writer: Josh Campbell, Matt Stuecken, Darrin Reed (Screenplay)
Starring: Cody Christian, Elisabeth Rohm, Kevin Pollak, Barry Livingston, Cameron James Matthews, Samuel Evan Horowitz
Plot: Nick Newell, a one-armed MMA fighter gets a rare chance to fight for the lightweight championship. He strives to win for himself and all the other people in the world with physical challenges.
Tagline – Based on the true story of the rise of a champion.
Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Notorious Nick starts when two life long friends Nick Newll (Christian) and Abi (Matthews) have spent their whole lives loving wrestling, before taking on the sport, despite Nick having a disability of only having one arm. The pair have always supported each other before trying their luck at MMA in a competition that Abi wins.
After a tragedy around Abi, Nick is given the chance to enter the cage fighting world, where he turns to his former wrestling coach Jeremy Libiszewski (Livingston) for training, looking to make a major impact in a sport most don’t see him having a chance in.
Thoughts on Notorious Nick
Thoughts – Notorious Nick is a sports drama focusing on the career rising from his high school wrestling to becoming MMA star. This is based on the real fighter who overcame the odds of his disability to compete against the toughest fighters in the sport. This is everything a sport drama would have needed to do, being one that will make you root for the underdog to achieve. The fighting training is everything you expect, with the matches doing the same, it would be fair to call this a safe by the book sports drama, that never seems to risk that much on its way to the ending people who know the fighter, already knew about. The performances in the film work well, with Cody Christian in the leading role handling the fight side of things well and Barry Livingston doing all that was needed in the coaching role.
Final Thoughts – Notorious Nick is a safe sports drama never going further than it needs to.
