The inspirational sports film trope is a well-traveled one. Veteran editor and first-time director William Goldenberg’s Unstoppable (the remarkable true story of Anthony Robles, who wrestled for the NCAA championship despite having only one leg) knows all the buttons to push, and it pushes most of them just right. The film begins in Philadelphia at the high school nationals. It then pays homage to the ultimate underdog film, Rocky, by showing the young Robles standing on the steps where Stallone (and later Michael B. Jordan) stood and looked out over the city. Young Robles (a terrific Jharrel Jerome) even has a Rocky poster in his room. Unstoppable may not always be subtle, but it does know exactly what it’s doing.
As with many sports movies, the film leads up to the big match, where our hero will take on a seemingly impossible opponent. The music swells, and the eyes well. There are several training sequences where we see Robles trying to keep up with his college teammates at Arizona State University. And, of course, there’s a training montage set to a propulsive needle drop. If Jerome’s sweet and determined performance and Goldenberg’s skillful direction were all Unstoppable had going for it, that would probably be enough. While Unstoppable may not reach the heights of Moneyball, Bull Durham, or Rocky, it does make a notable effort not to be typical.
If you were to take away the wrestling entirely, you’d still have a solid family film about a beleaguered mother (Jennifer Lopez in an anything-but-glam role) trying to raise five children while her eldest son (Anthony) is saddled with a terrible stepfather (Bobby Cannavale, who has this type of guy on lockdown). The four youngest children are the kids the stepfather sees as legit. Anthony is the spare part that came with the marriage. The family dynamic is far from healthy. Young Anthony may be fierce on the mat, but at home, he is the glue that holds the family together, while the father figure has two moods: antagonistic and raging. The mother is a woman that many will recognize: overworked, underpaid, and far too deferential to her awful husband. That being said, Lopez isn’t playing a doormat. She does fight with Cannavale over his treatment of Anthony and her other children; she just doesn’t know how to turn this jerk loose. She’s the kind of woman that people will look at from afar and ask, “Why doesn’t she just leave?” Anyone who has ever been in a family with poorly-matched and cash-strapped parents will recognize this scenario and understand that it’s never simple to “just leave.”
Cannavale deserves credit for fearlessly playing such an unpleasant person while showing you glimpses of charm when telling sweetly made promises that will surely be broken. In one revealing sequence, Cannavale’s “dad” is forlorn when he hears Anthony (and the children he considers his) making fun of him. At that moment, we see the broken man who has to puff himself up by pushing down on those inside his home.
The outcome of the big match and the bad marriage are never really in doubt. Unstoppable isn’t interested in subverting its genre, but it is a warm film that is, dare I say it, full of heart. It also doesn’t hurt that Michael Pena and Don Cheadle play Anthony’s respective high school and college wrestling coaches. Both actors add something extra to what could have been standard operating procedure roles. Mykelti Williamson, as a co-worker friend of Anthony’s, steals the few scenes he has and reminds me of how seldom Williamson is given parts that match the size of his talent.
Unstoppable is a pro job with a winning actor at the center, sincere supporting performances, and just enough filmmaking grace and grit to make you forget that you are watching a film just north of a well-made Disney family film.
By no means am I intending to damn the film with faint praise. The movie completes its mission with dignity, and there will be scores of people who will see and love it. There’s not a damn thing wrong with that. I would be telling a lie if I said the movie didn’t work me over in the way it intended to. Unstoppable may not be aiming for the highest mark, but it does hit its target. When the formula works, resistance is futile. And, well, the formula worked.
Unstoppable will be released by Amazon Studios on December 6
