‘Unstoppable’ Review: William Goldenberg’s Electrifying Directorial Debut
William Goldenberg energetically depicts Anthony Robles's inspiring story in Unstoppable, a sports drama anchored by compelling turns from Jharrel Jerome, Don Cheadle, and Jennifer Lopez.
Wrestling aficionados are hopefully aware that the ‘real’ sport isn’t about showmanship (or, worse yet, ‘storylines’ – I may get rocks thrown at me, but this critic says this as a massive fan of WWE and AEW), but an unforgivingly tactile duel where one slight misstep could result in a ‘fatal flaw.’ The body moves unnaturally and attempts to contort itself in toppling an opponent doing the same. It usually results in tight, dangerous combat that finishes in an unrelentingly close score, where perfection is preferred over ‘knocking out.’
This is electrifyingly visualized in William Goldenberg’s Unstoppable, which tracks the inspiring journey of Anthony Robles (Jharrel Jerome), a wrestling athlete who wants to reach the top of the ladder with only one leg. Of course, few believe in him, including his abusive stepfather, Rich (Bobby Cannavale), and, initially, his Arizona State University Coach, Sean Charles (Don Cheadle).
But his resolve is…unstoppable. Yes, yes, bad pun, but it’s true. In one harrowing scene, we see Robles climb a steep, rock-heavy double black diamond hiking trail by jumping with his sole leg on crutches. He frequently falls and even scrapes his arm after his crutches slide on a steep rock. But Robles perseveres. No matter how difficult it is, he knows that what makes him different only fuels him to prove himself to the rest of the wrestling team and the world. If he inspires one person to accept their differences, he has succeeded in making people pay attention to his story.
These scenes, alongside edge-of-your-seat inducing wrestling matches, make up the bulk of Unstoppable working in its favor. Of course, it also helps to have an editor in the director’s chair for the first time, working the movie as if it’s a puzzle to ‘piece together.’ Goldenberg has made a name for himself, collaborating with directors such as Michael Bay, Michael Mann, Ben Affleck (also one of the film’s executive producers), Kathryn Bigelow, and Jon Turtletaub. Working with these incredible filmmakers, he’s developed a keen eye for understanding what works and what doesn’t when visualizing a profoundly personal and human drama like the story of Anthony Robles.
He does have difficulty authentically representing the fractured relationship between Anthony and his stepfather, which also affects his mother, Judy (Jennifer Lopez). It sadly reverts to mawkish, almost soap-opera-like clichés where Alexandre Desplat’s score bludgeons the audience with overtly melodramatic tonalities to represent the severity of Rich’s physical and psychological abuse.
As good as an actor as Cannavale is, how the character is depicted seems far too one-note and takes inspiration from all the ‘domestic abuse’ tropes that, sadly, doesn’t make the drama involving Anthony and Judy feel tangible in any way. This narrative arc concludes satisfyingly, with Anthony finally having the courage to defend his mother’s sacrifices and standing up to Rich so that he will never perceive wrestling as a staged affair ever again. Anthony gets the last laugh, which seems more than enough. However, these parts aren’t as strong as the rest of the movie.
Thankfully, Lopez does imbue Judy with as much agency as possible to make us feel for her plight, even in the film’s darkest moments. She will stop at nothing to give Anthony and the rest of her children a life she will sadly never have (however, the film’s obligatory ending text has shown that she has finally pursued her dreams) away from poverty and tap into the best parts of themselves to succeed. It’s an impassioned, soulful performance that pales in comparison to the shoddy work she delivered in the horrendous Atlas and her inexplicably baffling passion project, This is Me…Now: A Love Story.
But Lopez has always shined the most in films like these, and Goldenberg seems to understand this head-on. He ensures Judy remains the heart and soul of the familial drama that takes a good chunk of Unstoppable’s two-hour runtime. Still, they’re not as inspiringly directed as when Robles must prove to his coach that he’s not only made for this sport but can hold his own in situations that they know will attempt to weaken him through his most glaring physical disability.
It’s in these sections where Unstoppable is thoroughly engaging and gets surprisingly emotional. And these emotions don’t feel forced. They’re justly anchored by another incredible performance from Jharrel Jerome, who has made a name for himself ever since breaking out in the scene with Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight. The physicality of Jerome’s performance, as great as it is, isn’t even its most impressive part. The emotion he conveys with each facial expression represents a rage he tries to suppress and a willingness to push through even the most unbearable pain to show the world what he’s truly made of. This fiery perseverance has made him a figure that everyone, no matter who they are, can look up to as a true role model.
With Cheadle as the figure to explain what Robles has to accomplish to be an even better athlete (and to the audience, he discusses emotional and physical balance – a perfect metaphor for the person Robles will strive to be), Unstoppable can effectively stay in the tired tropes of most sports dramas, and yet still deliver an emotional gut-punch by the end. The wrestling scenes are shot with great verve by cinematographer Salvatore Totino, who not only shows how their bodies must accomplish true, unadulterated feats of derring-do to defeat their adversary, or else, they could severely injure or even kill themselves.
Because of this, its predictable finale seems transcended by extreme close-ups of bodies attempting to resist contortion. This puts the audience in a very uncomfortable position, rooting for Robles to come out on top and eventually buying the telegraphed emotions when he accomplishes what he has set out to do since the movie began. Yes, we can see everything coming a mile away in Unstoppable. Sometimes, it’s not very good, primarily when it focuses on an all-to-familiarly structured domestic abuse drama that thinks it’s saying something meaningful when it rehashes platitudes that should’ve been shut down in movies way too long ago.
But when it bathes into sports movie action and involves the audience in repurposing the true nature of wrestling, Unstoppable’s momentum can’t be stopped by a dull family drama. Jerome, Cheadle, and Lopez respectively deliver great enough performances that it becomes hard to look away or necessarily nitpick the movie’s flaws, as glaring as they may be. Perhaps it could’ve been more astute than what we ultimately had, story-wise. But when Goldenberg knows how to pull the heartstrings by trusting in their actors’ abilities, and I eventually shed a few tears by the time Robles attains a truly impossible objective, does it really matter?