Most people believe that „Rocky” was the birth of
a modern fighter movie and they are wrong. Walter Hill managed to film a
better, more convincing and better acted movie couple of years before Stallone
rose to the stars and picked up all the laureates, including the „oscars”.
A story about the silent and harsh, but fair
stage fighter travelling across the American south was written for one man,
Charlie Bronson. With reliable James Coburn as his sleazy agent, it was left to Hill to direct crude and realistic fighting scenes, while preserving the „lone hero” aura
around Bronson.
With little or no music at all, „Hard times”
will often resemble a documentary more than a featured film.
„Hard times” was the first major American
fighter movie and one of the best ones as well.
