The Bronze (2016), R, ★★

Melissa Rauch as a foul-mouthed gymnast.

There are not many movies about the art of gymnastics and training for gymnastics that catapults many viewers to tryout to go after their dreams for the Olympic gold. However, I don't know if this is the movie that will get you to go out and chase your dreams. With much notice, many gymnasts retire at a young age due to injury, controversy or just other pursuits of life. But, my problem with the movie itself does not hang with the art of gymnastics and the set-up of the story, it is the nature of how the main character is dragged on and how they insert a seemingly fresh character and put it in a predictable story no matter how inspiring it is.

Hope Ann Gregory (Melissa Rauch) is recognized as a gymnast who finished a routine injuring her Achilles, earning a bronze and the status of celebrity in her small town of Amherst. Her dad (Gary Cole) calls Hope to dinner as she is masturbating to her footage of her bronze victory and screams at him in which she has a foul-mouthed temper and wears her Team USA jacket.

A young gymnast, Maggie (Haley Lu Richardson), and her manager are practicing a routine and as she enters, she is gushing about how Hope is one the best gymnasts ever as she is as a fan. When she hears the news from her dad that her former gymnastics coach has died, Hope is nonchalant and she replies that she hates him. Her father has received a letter, stipulating in her coach's will, Hope was left with $500,000 and she will receive on the condition if she trains Maggie to the Olympic games, regardless of where she places. At first, Hope clumsily sabotages the young trainer, but later, she gives Maggie pointers.

Silent treatment, I don't know.

I was conflicted about this movie as I liked half of what's offered in the movie and did not like half of what irritated me during this movie. I wanted to enjoy this movie because this raunchy comedy seems like a parody of a YouTube sketch for adults and if anybody wants to enjoy this movie this kind of way as an R-rated type of Olympic genre cartoon, so be it. I have seen Race and even though it is a better movie than The Bronze, it lacked focus mostly on its main character, Jesse Owens despite some great performances by Stephan James and Jason Sudeikis. To me, that movie is a better option to rent than view in the theater. Here, there's a bit of inspiration, yes, however, the pathetic, foul-mouthed persona got old quickly and then the persona got worse as she tries to redeem herself by training the young girl.

Melissa Rauch is outstanding and her timing is great with her comedy chops as she wrote this script with her husband. Her acting is quite fine when she is not a sympathetic human being but when empathy kicks in as she focuses on Maggie, it becomes quite refreshing. Her chemistry with Haley Lu Richardson is nicely put as the second half gears into predictably as the Olympics kick in and that's when it started to hurt me a little bit. There's a nice supporting cast with Gary Cole as the Dad, Thomas Middleditch as Ben and Sebastian Stan as Lance, especially in a scene in which a gymnastics-like sex scene is involved.

It seems, according to this review, that I liked this movie because of the performances and the relationship between Hope and Maggie, however, it's too scattershot in regards to genre, storytelling and formula. Bryan Buckley, the director, orchestrates well enough as a movie but there's too much going on here especially how it unfolds. And, also how Rauch orchestrates her character near the end, it becomes much especially with the foul language and all I wanted to say, "SHUT UP, ALREADY!" There's a special movie in there somewhere but there's not enough plausibility to cause me to recommend to anybody. There are special moments of humor, but those moments are not enough to make it a movie.

**