Posts Tagged ‘sports drama’

CREED III: 3 ½ STARS. “the trauma of the past revisited in the present.”

Can “Creed III,” the new Michael B. Jordan film now playing in theatres, really be part of the “Rocky” franchise when it doesn’t feature either Rocky Balboa or even a hint of “Gonna Fly Now,” the original movie’s inspirational theme song?

The answer is a resounding yes. Technically the ninth movie in the series, “Creed III” finds fresh ways to echo the original while doing its own fancy footwork.

“Creed III” begins with a flashback. It’s the early 2000s and fifteen-year-old Creed (Thaddeus J. Mixson) is running with Damian “Dame” Anderson (Spence Moore II), an older guy from his group home. With a lethal right hook Dame is headed for the boxing big time; the nationals, the Olympics and then, maybe, a world championship. “You’ll be with me,” he tells young Creed. “Someone has to carry my bags.”

When things get violent one night in front of a liquor store, Creed runs to safety but Dame goes to jail.

Cut to present day.

In “Creed II” Adonis, (Jordan who also directs this time out), finally stepped away from the long shadow cast by his father Apollo Creed and mentor Rocky Balboa to become his own man. Retired—“I left Boxing,” he says. “Boxing didn’t leave me.”—his career and family life in order, he’s now a celebrity gym owner and boxing promoter.

“I spent the last seven years of my life living out my wildest dreams,” says Adonis. “Rocky. My dad. This is built on their shoulders.”

Adonis moved on, but Dame (Jonathan Majors), fresh out of jail, is mired in the past. The former prodigy boxer wants his shot at a title, at the life Creed has, and he wants to fight Creed to get it.

“You think you mad?” he asks Adonis. “Try spending half your life in a cell. Watching somebody else live your life.”

“Creed III” isn’t really a sports movie. Blows are exchanged, and there’s even a lo-fi training montage—instead of Rocky’s famous run on the 72 stone steps leading up to the entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Creed bolts up the Hollywood Hills—but this is more about the trauma of the past revisited in the present, than the action in the ring.

Like the other movies in the “Rocky”/”Creed” Universe, “III” is about family. Creed’s mother (Phylicia Rashad), wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent) provide family dynamics at home, but it is the bond between Creed and Dame, once as close as brothers, that provides the movie’s core relationship.

The two friends, separated by dreams, jail and success, are forever bound by memories and the shared stories of trauma. The difference between them is that Creed has managed his life with control and timing, while Dane is about rage and revenge. Their mano-et-mano showdown may ultimately unfold in slightly predictable ways by the film’s twelfth round, but Jordan and Majors are anything but obvious.

Jordan delivers the goods as Creed, but it is Majors who steals the show. Dame is a complex character, one cursed to feel left behind. “I was the best but I never got a chance to show that,” he says, his voice dripping with anger. Majors makes us feel empathy for an intimidating guy who doesn’t play by the rules, by showing both his steeliness and vulnerability.

“Creed III,” of course, leads up to a showdown between the two frenemies, but as a director Jordan finds a way to make the inevitable fight more personal, more dynamic than the usual boxing movie finale. It’s a knockout climax to a sometimes formulaic, but heartfelt, story of ambition and regret.

HUSTLE: 3 ½ STARS. “about the struggle of overcoming adversity.”

“Hustle,” a new sports dramedy staring Adam Sandler, now streaming on Netflix, is an underdog story like “Rocky,” if that movie featured Burgess Meredith’s name above the title instead of Sylvester Stallone.

Sandler plays Stanley Sugarman, a veteran basketball scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. Decades spent on the road searching for new talent have left him weary and jaded, missing his wife (Queen Latifah) and daughter (Jordan Hull).

His new boss, the arrogant Vince Merrick (Ben Foster), isn’t making the job any easier. The two butt heads over Stanley’s latest find, Spanish b-ball phenom Bo Cruz (NBA star Juancho Hernangomez). On the court Bo is all unrefined power, used to hustling unsuspecting players for cash. Stanley sees greatness in him, but Bo’s troubled past raises alarms with Merrick and the 76ers management.

Convinced he has a winner, Stanley brings Bo to the United States. They form a bond based on their love of basketball and family, and together set out to prove that they have what it takes to succeed on the court and in life.

“Hustle” may be formulaic and easy to read, but it succeeds because of the chemistry between Sandler and Hernangomez. What begins as an odd couple pairing quickly becomes something more. This isn’t “Billy Madison” with a basketball, it’s a story of fathers and sons, of mentorship, one that provides uplift while avoiding the sentimentality that often shoehorns its way into movies like this.

Sandler’s performance is simple. It’s not as showy as his work in “Uncut Gems” or “Punch Drunk Love.” Instead, he infuses Stanley with world weariness tempered with resilience, to create a sincere portrait of a man and the game he loves. Screenwriters Taylor Materne and Will Fetters nail the seriocomic tone, feeding Sandler a string of self-depreciating one-liners that help define the character.

Director Jeremiah Zagar and cinematographer Zak Mulligan capture the excitement of the game with frenetic on-court camera work that heightens the drama and showcases the NBA action and player skills.

“Hustle” is an upbeat, predictable sports story but succeeds because of the stakes. You’ll know where this story is going (NO SPOILERS HERE) but it transcends the usual sports narrative because the characters have it all on the line. It’s not about the basketball, really, it’s more about the struggle of overcoming adversity and thus has a universal appeal even if you’ve never heard of an Alley-Oop.

THE WAY BACK: 3 ½ STARS. “‘The Days of Wine and Rose’ with basketball.”

“The Way Back,” a new drama starring Ben Affleck, is a riff on the you-can-never-go-home-again story with a sports twist.

Affleck is Jack Cunningham, a former high school basketball phenom who left a full scholarship at the University of Kansas on the table as he walked away from a promising career and into years of addiction. “I spent a lot of time hurting myself,” he says. “I made a lot of bad decisions. I got a lot of regrets.”

Cut to years later. Jack’s drinking—he starts the day with a beer in the shower—has cost him everything but when his alma mater recruits him to coach their basketball team he reluctantly agrees. “Is the team any good? he asks. “No,” he’s told. “In fact, the last time they made the playoffs, you were still playing.”

The team is in tatters, a laughing stock in the league but being back on the court gives Jack a renewed sense of being. “It keeps me busy,” he says. “Keeps my mind off other things.” As he molds the ragtag team into a force to be reckoned with, he discovers that the inspirational lessons he is teaching the kids—”The players decide the game!”—apply to his life as well.

“The Way Back” has the form of many other sports flicks—a new coach helps a failing team find their mojo—but this one digs deeper to focus on the characters rather than the rah rah of the sports. It’s “The Days of Wine and Rose” with basketball and a bleary eyed, beer-bellied and vulnerable Affleck at the center.

A quiet movie that tells the story of a man living in quiet desperation, “The Way Back” benefits greatly from Affleck’s raw but understated performance. Jack is damaged goods, a man wounded by life who subverts his pain by staring at the bottom of a pint glass. Director Gavin O’Connor gives Affleck nowhere to hide, shooting up-close-and-personal, and you can practically smell the beer breath as he shouts instructions at his players from the sidelines.

Rebuilding his life doesn’t come easily for Jack and the lack of easy life hacks, and a great central performance, elevates “The Way Back” above the run-of-the-mill sports drama.

CREED II: 4 STARS. “another puzzle piece in the feel-good ‘Rocky’ saga.”

Whoever said history never repeats didn’t work in Hollywood. Remakes and reboots have taken over theatres, recycling ideas and characters in what can sometimes feel like a continuous case of déjà vu. This week we have “Creed II” a sequel to a reboot, which is also a remake of sorts of a film made before star Michael B. Jordan was even born.

When we last saw Adonis Creed (Jordan) he was a young man who never knew his dad, former world champion boxer Apollo Creed. He did, however, inherit the old man’s love of boxing and much of his skill. Working with his dad’s old friend Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to get into ring-ready shape he, like his father before him, wins the respect of the boxing world.

In the new film he finds confronted by his father’s legacy in the form of Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), the son of the man who killed Apollo in the ring decades ago.

The year was 1985. Apollo Creed came out of a five-year retirement to give Soviet Olympic boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) a good old-fashioned American pummelling. Instead, with Rocky in his corner, Apollo is beaten senseless by the 6 foot 5 inch steroid-enhanced Russian. Just as Rocky drops the towel to end the fight Drago delivers the coup de grâce, a fatal blow that kills Apollo in centre ring. Determined to avenge Apollo’s death Rocky squares off with Drago in the Soviet Union in a Christmas season match. Journeyman Rocky shocks the world by winning, beating the statuesque Eastern Bloc fighter by knockout.

Flash forward to “Creed II.” The sting of that Reagan-era loss still bothers Drago (Lundgren, who else?). Shaping his son Viktor (Florian Munteanu) into a lean, mean fighting machine. Drago seeks to vicariously regain honour in the ring. “In Russia,”
Drago says, “no one will touch the Drago name. Everything changed that night.”

Father and son challenge Adonis, now the world heavyweight champion, to a match. “My son will break your biy,” Drago says, taunting Rocky. Despite Rocky’s warnings Adonis accepts the fight, looking for vengeance for a man he never knew. The showdown between the duelling sons brings into focus the shared legacy of the four men, Adonis, Viktor, Drago and Rocky.

“Creed II” isn’t really a movie about boxing. There are two brutal fight scenes but narratively this is about finding a sense of purpose, inside and outside of the ring. It’s about the why rather than the how. On that score it works. Director Steven Caple Jr. focuses on the characters allowing us to get to know them better, or in the case of Rocky and Drago, get reacquainted with them.

The film takes its time setting up the relationships before getting into the more traditional “Rocky” tropes, ie: unconventional but effective training methods and a rousing finale, complete with a riff on Bill Conti’s rousing “Rocky” theme song “Gonna Fly Now.”

This study of fathers and sons, of vengeance and reputation is really a look at brittle masculinity. These characters are all broken somehow, looking for something they are unlikely to find in the ring. “Why do you fight?” Rocky asks Adonis several times, sending him off on an introspective journey that leads him back to where his quest began, his father.

“Creed II” reverberates with the echoes of “Rocky” past but transcends being an exercise in déjà vu by amping up the emotional content to TKO levels. It is neither a rehash nor completely original work. It’s simply another puzzle piece in the feel good “Rocky” saga.