“Unstoppable” tells the story of Anthony Robles, who won a 2011 NCAA wrestling title and was born with one leg. But despite the training montages and the hustling to qualify for teams and competitions, William Goldenberg’s feature directing debut comes to life more often as a conventional family drama than as a conventional sports movie.
That’s probably a good thing at a time when the sports drama is starting to feel like a dying genre. “Unstoppable” takes time to flesh out the cyclical family dynamics that preoccupy Anthony (Jharrel Jerome), a disciplined athlete who can falter when his mind is elsewhere. His father, Rick (Bobby Cannavale), lords over the household, where Anthony is the eldest of five children. His mother, Judy, patches up the damage, in a typically sure-handed performance by Jennifer Lopez, negotiating mixed emotions.
The action joins Anthony in high school in Arizona, working out to motivational videos, eyes on the prize. He gets a scholarship offer from Drexel University in Philadelphia, but is gunning for a better wrestling program. Jerome gives Anthony a daunting focus and self-possession, which befits the incessant tests that competitive wrestling throws at him (on top of a part-time job at an airport). He gets some requisite tough love from his blustering high school coach (Michael Peña).
Anthony opts to stay local and go to Arizona State University when his dad upends the family with a sudden absence. At this school, making the team is an uphill battle, and his coach (a nicely underplaying Don Cheadle) needs to be convinced. Yet soon Anthony is on the mat winning matches, with a swaggering final-boss rival looming at another university.
But the most gripping scenes can be the confrontations at home (especially given a sometimes creaky script). Cannavale effectively puts across a machismo that turns from dad swagger to insidious undermining to much worse (though the violence is largely shown through its aftermath). Jerome stays contained, even quiet, in showing Anthony’s resistance, which only raises the tension. Lopez deftly scales her energy up or down in the scenes of regrouping after the storm.
The wrestling bouts can pale in comparison, except for the climactic match. Goldenberg has had a career as an editor, on films by Michael Mann and Kathryn Bigelow. Here, with his editor Brett M. Reed, he alternates judiciously among camera angles and distances, switching up the pace of the bout. We observe Anthony’s canny strategy rather than an easy smash-cut to a body slam.
At one point Goldenberg even intercuts wrestling with the life-changing financial struggles Judy must wrangle because of predatory bank lending. The film’s technical accomplishment is also unobtrusive but effective elsewhere: Jerome’s physical appearance is seamlessly altered digitally to embody Anthony (though the real Robles wrestles in portions of the matches).
A film about Anthony Robles runs the danger of courting clichés of uplift that weigh down some films featuring disability. “Unstoppable” does spotlight “Rocky” references, and a speech by Anthony’s mother employs the oft-criticized trope of serving as an example that “anything is possible.” But mostly the drama, while routine, follows the lead of son and mother, putting in the work and leaving doubters behind.
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