‘The Fire Inside’ Review: An Effortlessly Charismatic Pairing Anchors This Real-Life Olympic Boxing Tale

deadline.com:

Powerful performers punch above their weight in this otherwise by-the-book boxing drama. Based on the record-setting back-to-back Olympic victories—in 2012 and 2016—of professional boxer Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, who came from a poor background in Flint, Michigan, to win gold medals in London and Rio de Janeiro, it’s a familiar tale of success against the odds that takes some interesting turns as a depiction of a woman competing in a stereotypically male sport.

Ultimately, though, what made great material for a 90-minute documentary (2015’s T-Rex) doesn’t organically stretch to a 109-minute feature; thankfully, director Rachel Morrison resists the urge to confect extraneous drama, relying instead on its two excellent leads to carry the story to the last round.

Claressa’s story starts in 2006; we see a young girl running through a rundown neighborhood in wind and snow to a boxing gym on the other side of town.

She is used to rejection (“We don’t train no girls”), but one of the volunteers takes pity on her and takes her through her paces.