Director: William Goldenberg Screenwriter: Eric Champnella, Alex Harris, John Hindman Cast: Jharrel Jerome, Jennifer Lopez, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Don Cheadle Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios Running Time: 123 min. MPAA: PG-13

This movie’s sobering moment is when the one-legged wrestler Anthony Robles receives a pep talk from his high school coach Bobby Williams. Bobby tells the conflicted Anthony that there’s no joy without pain. Anthony admits those words brought him little comfort, but he appreciates the effort. I suppose that sums up my feelings on Unstoppable. This true-story underdog sports movie ticks all the familiar boxes yet still managed to warm me enough to get mildly enthused for the big match that would define Robles’s career.

A critical component to making this film work is having a strong cast to sell this sports drama. Jharrel Jerome delivers a strong performance as the young Anthony Robles, a one-legged teenager from a struggling family. He aims to take off with his wrestling career, which he hopes will carry him to college. While his mother, Judy, supports him in an enduring performance by Jennifer Lopez, his ambitions are constantly questioned by his abusive father, Rich, played with believable bravado by Bobby Cannavale in one of his finer roles. The problems at home make the problems in the ring all that much more challenging. Because while Anthony’s high school coach Bobby (Michael Peña), the Arizona University coach Sean Charles (Don Cheadle) is even more blunt about Anthony’s odds and why he won’t be a shoe-in for ASU wrestling.

William Goldenberg makes his directorial debut with Unstoppable, transitioning from the world of editing films ranging from Pleasantville and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. In this film, he makes many smart calls by sticking to the most evocative moments of Robles’s life—the film darts between family drama at home and intense wrestling matches in arenas. Most of them are filmed close up with handheld camera techniques to feel like you’re right in the room, trying to get the best view of a verbal or physical fight. This mainly works at keeping the audience constantly engaged in Anthony’s struggle, even if Judy’s problems of an abusive relationship and mortgage problems seem to resolve themselves quickly and mostly off-screen.

There’s some admiration for how Unstoppable entrances the viewer with its underdog elements that rarely linger enough to grow tired of the formula. Before we have much time to question the college stress of a wrestling career, the film darts back to aggressive conflicts with Judy trying to raise multiple children with a fired cop/terrible father. The hallmarks of a memorable sports drama are exploited for every drop, spanning from how much Anthony bleeds during a jogging exercise up a mountain to how hard he stands up to a father who is not a good role model.

The problems with a film like this are more from the format, considering how much Goldenberg adheres to what most audiences have come to expect from sports dramas. There’s rivalry, but it’s treated more like a natural progression than a mountain to best with focus and training. There’s engrossing American drama, but only for so long as the film can find time to care about the problems of Judy trying to divorce herself from the violent cop Rich. At a certain point, there was a moment where I stopped caring about the progression and started finding favor in the individual scenes. In more sports-worthy terms, the score didn’t matter as much as the punches thrown.

Unstoppable is a fine sports drama that gets the job done, but only to a sufficient degree. There’s some admiration in the tale of Anthony Robles, especially for being a one-legged wrestler. But even when divorced from the apparent disdain that one harbors for how a disabled teenager is forced into proving himself, the movie mainly covers the broad points to be a mildly satisfying true-story sports film. This movie never breaks from the typical formula of underdog sports dramas, but perhaps that’s the point. Anthony doesn’t feel like a wrestler bound by the pressures that would face a disabled athlete but is conflicted by the issues more of his demons that reside at home. On that level, Unstoppable is comforting for its representation but also typical in its execution. There’s a soft comfort in how a film about a one-legged wrestler can find appeal with an audience, albeit an audience who has come to expect the familiar momentum and crescendo. As for myself, I was decently intrigued enough by the performances and staging to care a little more about Anthony Robles beyond the melodrama this film aimed to evoke.

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