Sport – Consumed By Film

Creed (2016)

★★★★

Director: Ryan Coogler

Release Date: November 25th, 2015 (US); January 15th, 2016 (UK)

Genre: Drama; Sport

Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson

“Adonis got into a fight today” are some of the first words we hear in Creed, Ryan Coogler’s Rocky revitaliser, and you expect them to be words the film will live by. After all, when we first meet Adonis “Donnie” Johnson, son of heavyweight boxing legend Apollo Creed, he is in a young offender’s institution and suffering from some serious anger issues. Plus it’s a boxing movie, right? Boxers are big brutes, right? Well, wrong on both counts. Creed isn’t a boxing movie, it is a movie about companionship and love and legacy, and Donnie certainly ain’t a big brute, but rather a fairly normal guy whose lineage and hard-working attitude have afforded him abnormal talent.

The next time we see him fighting is 17 years later in a seedy, smoky Mexican club and he wins, though a terrific edit cuts the celebrations short by sending us back over to the US and into a corporate meeting. Unlike Rocky, this is not a rags to riches story (eventual opponent “Pretty” Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew) makes that clear at a press conference later on). Donnie is intellectually sound and he lives in a plush home having been adopted by his father’s widow, Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad). There is a non-boxing path paved out for him should he want to take it.

But Donnie has a problem coming to terms with Apollo’s legacy. He doesn’t want the plush house paid for — at least in part — by the father who he feels abandoned him, yet Donnie admires Apollo’s talent and he absolutely wants a shot at the sport that conquered his father. Unfortunately, nobody in Los Angeles will train him; Donnie won’t use his dad’s name therefore trainers simply see him as an erratic wannabe. So the bum does what any boxer worth their gloves would do: shut up shop, move to Philadelphia, and seek out the man who went 15 official rounds with Apollo Creed (twice) and won (twice, really).

“You are your father’s son,” says a defeated Mary Anne. And he is as far as determination goes. But Donnie doesn’t want to be; he is haunted by Apollo’s lingering shadow — quite literally too, as posters paint the walls of just about every gym he visits. There is an odd attempt to challenge the media’s obsession with legacy-tarnishing celebrities that feels too abrupt to have any impact, but otherwise Coogler and Aaron Covington’s screenplay is excellent, only briefly tapping into nostalgia when it is unavoidable.

This gives the cast a clear platform to carve their own creations, especially Michael B. Jordan who might as well work with Coogler for the rest of time if the duo are always going to be this good together. He has a ton of charisma, not the loud or arrogant type, but the natural sort that convinces audiences to invest their emotion. The relationship between Donnie and Rocky is central to the film’s triumph and it beats with such a genuine heart — a handful of their interactions bear so much nuance and truth that your lip might threaten to quiver.

Rocky thinks his understudy is a “better” man than he because the well-educated Donnie knows a bit about stuff, but the Italian Stallion knows a bit more about trouncing the odds. At one point the pair are offered a potentially tricky fight and Donnie instantly approves, his mind already focused on weight loss. But Rocky knows the offer might have come too soon for an inexperienced Donnie and, more importantly, he knows it isn’t about cutting weight. It is about the fight game and playing said game with a healthy balance of honour and smarts.

Stallone is Rocky, but Rocky is older. His irrepressible yammering has quietened in light of Adrian’s passing and his retirement, yet you get the sense there is a part of him still stuck in the 70s (an iCloud gag just about authenticates that). Likewise, Maryse Alberti captures Philly essentially as it was in the original Rocky. Wearing its best wintry coat, Eagles-town revs up for another bout of fight preparation: icy breath; long-distance jogging; chicken chases; grey tracksuits and woolly hats. It’s all there. Meanwhile Rocky, eyes still pointing out mistakes and mind still working out tactics, is a tired sight physically.

Another integral relationship is the romantic one between Donnie and fellow apartment dweller Bianca (Tessa Thompson). The nature of the franchise beast suggests comparison is an inevitability and while Donnie and Bianca’s companionship is not as charmingly spontaneous as Rocky and Adrian’s, it really is quite lovely. This time she is the outgoing one and he is more reserved, traits reflected in conversations between the two: whereas Donnie’s trepidation is based on a self-created manifestation of doubt, Bianca, living with progressive hearing loss, has something concrete to fear. So she sings for a living, and he should box without inhibition.

Southpaw, despite its creaky storytelling, got the in-ring sequences spot on and Creed is similarly successful. The casting of actual heavyweight fighters — Tony Bellew is a world title challenger and Andre Ward, playing another knockout artist, is a world champion — affords the fight scenes proper pedigree, especially when someone like Bellew is placed in a familiar HBO environment. The actual boxing isn’t gung ho which also funds the realistic aesthetic and the training montages are as good as any in recent memory; buoyed on by another exhilarating score, they have oomph and momentum.

You can practically see the weight on Stallone’s ageing shoulders as he juggles Rocky’s search for another shot at glory and his uncertainty over how to handle Donnie. It is an uncertainty born out of caring too much. And we buy it, unconditionally. Donnie is the boxing son Rocky never had, the son of his fiercest foe and fondest friend, the son who has re-awoken the fight in cinema’s greatest ever fighter.

Images credit: IMP Awards, Collider

Images copyright (©): Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros. Pictures

Southpaw (2015)

★★★

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Release Date: July 24th, 2015 (UK & US)

Genre: Action; Drama; Sport

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams, Forest Whitaker

The fact that Southpaw struggles to hurdle the proverbial style over substance dilemma is perhaps not particularly surprising given its director Antoine Fuqua recently doused the silver screen with The Equalizer and Olympus Has Fallen. Having said that, Fuqua was also the man behind Training Day back in 2001, and had he borrowed more of that movie’s mettle, the filmmaker might have been onto a winner with this otherwise fairly conventional sports drama.

“Billy Hope” is a classic boxing name, the sort given to someone destined to surmount typical obstacles. True to form, Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an underdog: orphaned at a young age, odds stacked against him from the get-go, we meet Hope right before he is about to box for the World Light Heavyweight Title in Madison Square Garden. He wins. And that’s fine; boxing movies tend to be underdog movies for a reason — in real life, the sport is all about rising above adversity and showing heart, so it is right cinema should reflect that.

But when dazzling shots of New York City find significant screen time, something feels off. Commercialism is in the air and it rears its rich head more often than it ought to. Sure, this idealist aura fits when Hope is champion and resultantly wrapped up in his material world — he and his wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams), a fellow orphan, live in a plush home with their adolescent daughter — but as soon as the fighter loses everything, materiality should no longer be his goal. For a while, it isn’t.

After Hope’s victory, the film is dead-set on convincing us that boxers never truly win. From subtle hints at memory loss, to his wife’s misgivings about him competing again, to the actions of another title contender, the darker side of boxing is emphasised. Of course, tragedy is bound to strike and when it does it’s really quite heartbreakingly played by the people involved. Those who have seen the trailer will know what happens — I’ll avoid the particulars, though it is easy to work out. The abrupt nature of the tragedy suggests it is merely a narrative device designed to propel Hope’s story forward, and although there is truth to that line of thought, it does also introduce compelling themes such as fatherhood with greater heft.

The legal resolution to the tragedy is poorly realised; the consequences seem lazily construed (harsh punishments are dealt to innocent parties, whereas the guilty gang appear to get away scot-free). Left wallowing in despair, Hope turns again to boxing rather than his equally distraught daughter, and then to drink and violence when the fighting does not pan out. His once loyal promoter (50 Cent) drops him without any incline of regret because, after all, “it’s just business”. Here, Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter’s screenplay highlights the ruthless side of the sport, the corporate face that wholly goes against boxing’s brotherly backbone.

Gyllenhaal channels Anthony Quinn in Requiem for a Heavyweight, muttering and growling through helpings of dialogue. We watch him navigate home life with busted ribs and a busted face, and the actor sells the agony with so much realism you wonder whether he literally took a beating for his craft. The typical boxer stereotypes are enforced: Hope can’t really spell, nor is he a great public speaker outside the world of boxing, but at least we get a chance to see these anxieties play out. In truth he isn’t an especially well written character, erratic, for example, in moments of should-be clarity — an introductory conversation between he and maturing gym owner Tick Willis (Forest Whitaker) combusts out of nowhere.

I’m not entirely sure how Whitaker meant to portray Tick; he flirts between calm and crazed a little too enthusiastically. Oona Laurence ably pulls off Hope’s book smart daughter. She has lovely poise and avoids the potentially suffocating Grating Child Actor trap. This is the Gyllenhaal show though. He manages to terrify and reflect instability, yet still garner our complete sympathy. Indeed it is a transformative performance, but the muscular physicality is almost irrelevant. His heavy face, his anguished voice, his bowed eyes — these are the traits that actually engage us.

But as unoriginal training montages begin to arrive, coaxed on by Eminem, the overly produced aura makes a comeback. I think the film gets too caught up in reaching an idealistic end point: it needs to better separate the grit and the glam (it does for a while and works as a result), because the glam is poison and we do not want our reformed anti-hero seeking out poison. Million Dollar Baby is an example of a film that brilliantly subverts the recognisable model. Fuqua, it seems, can’t quite help chasing another false dream.

We do see an apt balance of grit and glam inside the ring. Fights are HBO presentations, and broadcasting mainstays Jim Lampley and Roy Jones, Jr. provide commentary. Wide shots positively feed the authentic televisual nature of the matches (as opposed to lingering on the boxers’ faces, common in Rocky and Raging Bull, those films likely limited by their technical capabilities). The fight choreography even evokes reality: head and body clinches are plentiful, and a blood-sweat concoction violently sprays at the behest of punches. One particularly intuitive camera movement vaults backwards over the top rope after a brutal uppercut.

Apart from that, there is nothing new going on here. Fuqua directs on familiar ground, navigating efficiently through the usual peaks and troughs before landing where all boxing movies land. His lead actor elevates the material, but even he needs more support from those around him (main villain Miguel Escobar (Miguel Gomez) is woefully wafer-thin). Southpaw was probably never going to be a true contender, but thanks to Jake Gyllenhaal, Billy Hope is at least somebody.

Images credit: IMP Awards, Collider

Images copyright (©): The Weinstein Company

Foxcatcher (2015)

★★★★★

Director: Bennett Miller

Release Date: January 9th, 2015 (UK)

Genre: Biography; Drama; Sport

Starring: Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo

You could single out any number of attributes and relate them to Bennett Miller’s directorial portfolio, but depth wouldn’t be one. The New Yorker has created four films since 1998 and, at a rate of one film every four or five years, Miller obviously doesn’t take job choices lightly. After a seldom seen documentary feature called The Cruise (1998) and his critically acclaimed biographical drama Capote (2005), Miller tried his hand at exploring the inner workings of American sport on the big screen. Moneyball (2011) was polished and affecting, but never set out to irritate because it was never meant to be that kind of story, just as baseball isn’t that kind of sport.

Foxcatcher, on the other hand, is that kind of story. Whereas Moneyball told a consumable tale that reflected the everyday popularity of baseball, Miller’s latest piece bathes in the sweaty discomfort and disassociation of wrestling. It’s uncensored, but subtly so. It’s damn good too.

Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) is an amateur wrestler. We first meet him as he somewhat timidly relays semi-encouraging words to a less than half full hall of school children. Perhaps timidness is the wrong adjective. Mark isn’t necessarily a shy person, but his inability to open up is reflected in his distanced demeanour. All he knows is an everyday, basic existence. And amateur wrestling. Tatum excels as the hard-boiled grappler, his physicality more than matched by a powerhouse emotional range that develops alongside the story. He hobbles as you’d imagine a wrestler would, and wears sweatpants and an unforgiving exterior in and out of the gym, unlike the more outgoing Dave.

Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) is Mark’s older brother, the man Mark is filling in for during the opening scene. Dave is also an Olympic champion and, for one reason or another, the more popular brother. Ruffalo brings an awkward charm to the role; we’re instantly drawn to him as he graciously interacts with American wrestling officials, Ruffalo dragging his toes as he shakes hands as if to highlight an inert clumsiness. The siblings train shortly thereafter, and Foxcatcher unleashes its first taste of the brutish sport — as Dave gets the better of Mark the latter lashes out, emphasising Mark’s simmering displeasure towards his overshadowing older brother.

Both men receive the opportunity to head up an all-American wrestling team at Foxcatcher farm, funded by John du Pont (Steve Carell). “Du Pont, a dynasty of wealth and power”, are the words that echo from a History Channel-esque montage about the rich family. Mark accepts, aspiration outweighing alertness, whereas family man Dave rejects. Though the film breeds an air of morbidity from the outset, it really kicks into gear upon the arrival of a terrifying looking du Pont. The three primary actors deliver wholly, but it is Carell’s skin-crawling turn as the internally maniacal financier that’ll stick in the memory and continue to probe long after the final pinfall. Assisted by facial prosthetics more suited to the latest House of Wax horror instalment, Carell maintains false poise that’s ready to burst. He’s devilish and utterly detestable.

Miller’s film teases the inevitability of chaos bred from a relationship between the three men, but refrains from delivering on the fact until the final act. Much of the first hour and a half of Foxcatcher instead focuses on the relationship between du Pont and Mark, a partnership that is clearly on iffy terrain from go. Their first face to face meeting at the farm is one of a catalogue of tension filled moments; du Pont sells his wrestling project to Mark (the multimillionaire wants to foster a gold medal batch of grapplers) under the guise of honour and patriotism. Rob Simonsen and West Dylan Thordson’s score is noticeably absent here as we hang on du Pont’s every word in tandem with Mark.

Although the screenplay relays a number of striking lines — “Horses are stupid. Horses eat and shit, that’s all they do” is a particular stand-out that comes from the mouth of du Pont, breeder of amateur wrestlers — the piece doesn’t necessarily rely on words to succeed. Rather, it’s about tension and ambiguity and the toxic atmosphere burning the three men involved. The overarching moodiness serves a purpose, but it is also a necessity given the real life framework. Foxcatcher resembles David Fincher’s Gone Girl in many ways, though the Gillian Flynn-penned film alleviates tension via brief moments of humour, unlike Foxcatcher. This incessantly serious approach works given the context, and Miller’s tactful management of the potentially tricky sullenness is a true masterclass in pressure-building on screen.

Taking all of the above into consideration, it’s unsurprising that the camera refuses to shy away from raw moments — shots are dynamic when showing matches and totally still otherwise. Greig Fraser’s cinematography effectively positions the audience in amongst any wrestling and as such captures the fleshy warring in full flow. Both Tatum and Ruffalo ought to be commended on their very immersive abilities, and it’s also worth noting the most horrifying celebratory expression in recent memory from Carell after a victory.

The culmination is game of pawn playing, a deliberation of moral values, and of blind understanding. Three men are at the forefront, their rapport with each other and with amateur wrestling challenged. Foxcatcher might only be Bennett Miller’s fourth film in almost 20 years, but it is absolutely his most accomplished.

Images credit: IMP Awards, Collider

Trouble with the Curve (2012)

★★★★

Director: Robert Lorenz

Release Date: September 21st, 2012 (US); November 30th, 2012 (UK)

Genre: Drama; Sport

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake

Whereas Bennett Miller’s Moneyball laid out the intricacies of baseball and created an engrossing film about the sport for people who don’t know the sport, Trouble with the Curve sees baseball solely as a starting point; as the spark that will go on to ignite a splendid tale of relationships, trust and stubbornness. The cast is excellent and each bring something different to the field, but it’s simplicity that allows Trouble with the Curve to thrive. The low-key approach is very laissez-faire, almost as if the film isn’t striving to make that home-run. Only, it just about gets there anyway.

Gus Lobel (Clint Eastwood) is an elderly scout who has plied his trade at the Atlanta Braves for decades. He has devoted his life to baseball and Gus’ ageing mind is always wandering in search for the next bat. Eyes failing him (a scout’s nightmare) and given one final chance to unearth a diamond, Gus finds himself on the road with his daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) whose success in law suggests more than just strength and independence, as it instead covers up the cracks dealt in a life without her father.

Not an awful lot happens in Trouble with the Curve, but it’s exactly that deficiency in over-doing things that gives the film its mellow charm and warmth. Having its toes dipped in the sports genre, a danger certainly exists where the attraction of glorifying situations and entering an all-too-familiar schmaltz territory is never far off, but director Robert Lorenz ensures sappiness is kept to an absolute minimum, meaning that when it does rear its mushy head, you are obliged to forgive. In a film about overcoming obstacles, it’s definitely more fitting to have some puddles of slush rather than sheets of uncompromising ice.

At the heart of the film are two performances, both of which provide the elevation needed for Trouble with the Curve to stand out from the pack. Clint Eastwood is gravelly, rustic, abrasive, croaky and a whole manner of other blemishes associated with an elderly man who has seen his best years, and who probably wont see much more of the sport he loves and lives. Gus Lobel’s colleagues are often seen exclaiming, “He may be ready for pasture,” “Game’s changed,” and “New blood”, and although he doesn’t hear these put-downs in the open, Eastwood’s defiant yet deep-down defeated demeanour tells you all you need to know about his character’s own perception of a bleak future.

Along, then, comes the simply delightful Amy Adams, who bursts with soul as she injects life into both Eastwood and the film. Although a cagey lawyer-type in the beginning, her relationship with Eastwood develops into an absorbing one: sometimes sad, sometimes funny, but always worth its weight in screen time. Gus and Mickey are far too stubborn to admit defeat (in their eyes, at least) and the film plays with this idea of withholding from loved ones until it might be too late. Mickey is always coiled up in work; her aspirations of getting a promotion in an industry she only entered to please her father are shallow, as he is never there to see her thrive anyway (“Everything’s okay as long we don’t talk”). Gus is distant, embroiled in baseball and relentlessly stutters when attempting to unveil feelings and sentiment towards his daughter. Justin Timberlake portrays former player Johnny Flanagan, someone who was apprehensive in the past about discussing the arm injury that prematurely ended his playing career. Timberlake deserves recognition for his charismatic contribution too, and together the three actors develop brilliant chemistry which ultimately drives the film and sharpens its principals.

In its lack of narrative extravagance, Trouble with the Curve does run the risk of inducing monotony, however the aforementioned engaging characters should be enough to guide you through until the end. Although not as funny as other road-trip films (which it essentially is) there are undoubtedly moments of comedy, a handful of which tread the black humour realm. This is Eastwood’s first non-self-directed acting expedition since a Casper cameo in 1995, and one or two playful sniggers towards age and losing touch with reality are on show — the whole ‘loss of sight’ element might even be a nod towards Eastwood’s real life front-of-camera career wind down.

It is all about the people involved, and thankfully the people involved are excellent company — there are even fun roles for Matthew Lillard and John Goodman, who has been pried from the Coen Brothers’ grip in order to film this. Purity is pivotal throughout Trouble with the Curve; heck, maybe a riskier, more diverse plot would’ve offered surprise and ingenuity. That’s wishful thinking though and, to be honest, probably a disservice to the brilliant effort on show from those involved.

Anyway, it is breakfast time… where’s my pizza?