Frantic Boxing series is more uncut gems than Rocky

23 years after they starred together in I do mom TambienGael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna return to Hulu’s La Máquina
For a completely different type of conflict. The Mexican acting duo and frequent collaborators are in strong form again as longtime friends with a complex dynamic as in Alfonso Cuarón’s coming-of-age drama.

Far away from the God and glorious spirit of the Rocky franchise – the torch-bearer when it comes to screen boxing stories, of course – La Máquina is an increasingly claustrophobic drama set around the world of boxing. Not afraid to dip into the realms of farce, the miniseries has the characteristic political undertones of many of Garcia Bernal and Luna’s other projects, but focused on the microcosmic goal of corruption, deception and misfortune in the sports world as the backdrop of Two men fighting to gain control of their lives and legacies.

Garcia Bernal plays Esteban “La Máquina” (The Machine) Osuna, a fighter at the end of his career who suffers a world-changing defeat and is handed one final shot at glory. He struggles with addiction and self-destructive behavior, as well as terrifying medical effects from his career, which nevertheless still define him. Luna is his promoter and childhood friend, seemingly pulling the strings of his career, manipulating things to a final payoff that restores Osuna’s image. Almost immediately, the decisions of his past come back to haunt both men.

Inevitably, La Máquina has things to say

It’s more like uncut gems than Rocky

Rocky Spends a lot of time building his superhuman characters, obsessing over the idea of ​​stardom being achievable for anyone resilient enough. la maquina, in contrast, Add the story: Esteban is crushingly normal, behind the glossy image Andy manipulates, and is faced with the nightmare that he is never in control. He has normal problems, normal fears, normal weaknesses against the background of superstardom in the circus of fame, and we are gradually introduced to the idea that he is a victim, rather than a worthy victory.

La Máquina Explore a very un-Rocky– as a question. What would you do not only if you had the idea of ​​selling your soul, but with the revelation that it has already been sold out from under you? And while the boxing takes a back seat to a wider focus on the world around him, the story mimics a boxing match, landing haymakers, throwing in hopeful counters and balancing entertainment with some hard blows. The The strongest parts of the show are watching Esteban and Andy trying to regain control as everything spirals away from themAnd the only solution is something neither of them seem willing to accept.

The mini series Is One part Shakespearean tragedy, with some appropriately grotesque characters, one part Mexican telenovela, and one part Uncut Gems With a little less anxiety. This puts Gael Garcia Bernal’s aging boxer in the eye of a storm of unfortunate circumstances – skeletons in his closet he’s not even aware of, the looming specter of CTE and its very real symptoms, and an organized crime undercurrent that threatens to destroy His life and legacy.

La Máquina struggles with its own history

Grand aspirations end up getting confused in a very busy plot

There’s a lot going on in there la maquina, And as a result, the story ends up quite confused: big ideas, like an exhibition about the exploitation of boxers by their promoters or the very serious CTE issue are picked up and dropped (or resolved in illogical ways). An entire character that is set up as important disappears completely, and yet another becomes the focal point of the second half of the series that appears out of nowhere.

It feels like there are just too many thoughts warring at once, like La Máquina Battles to be both a contained story and something much bigger. In an attempt to simultaneously tell the stories of Andy and Esteban, along with his larger concepts, La Máquina Get lost a little. Some elements are just too distracting, and what could have been a pressure cooker to build the final action and the resolution of the ideas that were established very early around corruption, legacy and mortality become messy.

At one point, there is a diverting flirtation with the idea of La Máquina As a Heart of Darkness-style Venture into Esteban’s inner psyche, but it is unbalanced by the conspiracy plot. The setup is so weird that it feels like it was taken from a completely different show. There is a bit of an identity problem hereFundamental: We don’t get a deep enough investigation of Esteban’s own troubled existence nor a fully satisfying commentary on corruption.

Without seeing the ending (pre-release access is limited to the first 5 of 6 episodes), it’s hard to say much about how the threads are tied up or the ideas resolved, but at the end of the penultimate episode, the general feeling Is one of a little confused frustration. Yes, there are excellent things, but the tone wanders illogically, the story becomes a rat’s nest, and the punches start to feel worked.

The recent reunion of Garcia Bernal & Luna is a tale of two very different performances

And both actors are excellent

Garcia Bernal is subtle but very good as EstebanAnd completely at odds with the caricatured image of Boxer: he has all the hallmarks of the troubled star the stories favor, and his volatility sometimes rises, but he is otherwise largely unremarkable. He does not look like a boxer, does not play with the excess of a superstar, and can believe in completely disappearing into the background. The subtlety is very effective, and Garcia Bernal delivers an impressive portrayal of a haunted man unraveling.

Luna, on the other hand, is an ostentatious caricature, preened and almost unrecognizable under prosthetics to mimic a little too much cosmetic surgery. He is a peacock, quite unbearably burdened with fertility issues to tell you what the real message is with him, who wears a toupé and is at the mercy of his Lady Macbeth-like mother (Lucía Méndez). This is a very different performance for Luna, especially against his leading role in AndrHowever It’s very obvious that he’s having fun with the material and he’s excellent.

It is not entirely appropriate to compare La Máquina to yes mama tambian, Despite the marketing leaning on the reunion of the lead actors (in fact, this is the third project they have worked on since after Rudo y Cursi (2008) and Casa de mi Padre (2012)) other than in broad strokes. It trades heavily on Luna and Garcia Bernal’s easy charisma together, of course, but it’s a show more about conflict than friendship.

La Máquina is not really about boxing

Life, legacy and control are the bigger issues

There are still similarities with RockyOf course, that goes further La Máquina Sharing the world of boxing. All the best boxing stories are underdog stories, which Osuna is (albeit at the tail end of glory), and not just in his bouts. It is the same hint of medical issues, mental health issues (more a Creed thing like a Rocky One), the background of criminal underworld involvement, and the perpetual pull of being in the fight. But La Máquina is much more modern, and almost provocatively ignores the boxing ring.

Rocky And Creeds boxing worlds are gladiator arenas where boxers tangle in the ballet of combat, and the ring is a stage. It’s all their fear, even with Rocky’s barely explored criminal background. La MáquinaIn contrast, acknowledge that boxing is full of clowns and ghouls. It’s not a serious world, and the show challenges that po-faced grit. Boxers here are not hulking monsters, moral conflicts are not black and white, and the image of the cutthroat media industry around the sport is very well observed. All it needed was for an influencer to muscle in the sport for full realism.

I really wish there was more of this world, but instead La Máquina Settles to tell the story of two people struggling with their decisions and the pressures of their parents: one absent (in Esteban’s case), and one all-to-present (in Andy’s). The actors spoke about reflecting on their careers in la maquina, And you can see it in the focus on performance and control, and the heavy load of expectation. The show is as much about acting as it is about boxing.

When it’s good, it’s very good, but I was left a little disappointed by the sharp plot turnsThe tonal shifts, and the loss of focus on the strongest and most interesting ideas in favor of something more fundamental. That’s never more obvious than with

Eiza González’s Irasema – Esteban’s ex-wife and an investigative journalist – who threatens to blow the boxing world apart with revelations of CTEs, but who seems to forget her agenda and move on to wider corruption.

What could have been a sad meditation on the cost of Esteban’s fame on his body and a trial of the people who put him there becomes a dazzling tale of government-level corruption, and Irasema ends up a pawn in someone Another story. finally, La Máquina Becomes a slight mismatch against too many opponents at once. To call it great, you have to ignore too much, but it’s still an entertaining watch that does an admirable job of defying expectations.

All 6 episodes of La Máquina Premieres on Hulu on October 9