Unstoppable review – Jennifer Lopez and Jharrel Jerome lift routine sports drama

There are winks throughout the Matt Damon/Ben Affleck produced wrestling drama Unstoppable suggesting that those involved are keenly aware of the archetypes that have come to define and often plague the sports movie genre. The lead character has a Rocky poster in his room and we see him twice walk to the top of the historic steps from the series to feel inspired. A high school coach pokes fun at stirring speech cliches at a key teaching moment. A college coach is ridiculed for his overuse of mythical fables as motivation. But more often the film, premiering at the audience-friendly Toronto film festival, is content to be just as bland and boilerplate as the many many against-all-odds crowd-pleasers that have come before it.

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The true story of over-achieving wrestler Anthony Robles, born with one leg to a struggling young mother, is fitted with the easy beats we naturally expect but can only transcend when the film allows its specifics to shine through. Films about wrestling are thin on the ground, something Unstoppable often directly explains, especially during the wrestles which are mildly involving at best, but the details and difficulties of a less explored world also give it a distinction it sorely needs. Robles is fearfully aware of the limits that his passion insists upon him, regardless of his physical condition, a sport that doesn’t provide one with many, if any, options post-college. It adds an urgency to his dream, if not now then never, and a sad awareness that even if he does succeed, his life after that point will probably be lived working a job he’s never wanted with anywhere near the same intensity.

Robles is played by Jharrel Jerome, an actor who broke out in the second chapter of Moonlight before going on to pick up an Emmy for When They See Us. He’s spurred on by unwavering support from his coach (Michael Peña) and mum (Jennifer Lopez) but without much in the way of financial support, his next steps are limited and so the hunt is on for a scholarship. He’s handed a sole offer but from a college without a wrestling track record and he’s wary of feeling forced to accept anything over nothing. Instead, he competes for a spot at Arizona, under the eye of another tougher coach (Don Cheadle) while trying to keep his family together, at the mercy of an abusive stepfather (Bobby Cannavale, believably odious).

It comes from the Damon/Affleck-created production company Artists Equity and follows their other sports drama, the Nike tale Air. Like that film it’s also written with an awareness of the finances involved in the industry and how certain athletes must rely on assistance to excel. Here, rather than Affleck directing, he’s recruited his long-time editor William Goldenberg, making his debut as film-maker but it’s an uninspiring career swerve, the Amazon film looking every bit as flat and no-frills as the majority of production-line streaming fare. When the script, based on Robles’s 2012 book, isn’t focused on the film’s more compelling points of uniqueness, it’s equally routine, content to trot out cliches both at home and on the wrestling floor.

With dialogue that’s mostly pedestrian, it’s then up to the actors to do the real heavy-lifting and Jerome is more than ready for the task. It’s a tirelessly physical performance, the actor needing to train and contort his body in a new, much more strenuous way to make us believe he’s without a leg, and we’re never less than totally convinced (a standout scene of him undergoing a tough, uphill hike is made powerful because of his believably exhausted determination). Lopez is an actor who has regretfully chosen not to even vaguely challenge herself since she delivered her most textured performance to date in 2019’s crowd-wowing Toronto premiere Hustlers. Successful yet slapdash streaming slop like Shotgun Wedding or this summer’s feeble Netflix thriller Atlas have allowed us to forget what she can do with more grounded material. It’s an unusual supporting role for the star but she has guts and a warm maternalism that add depth to family scenes than can often feel a little rote. Cheadle, an ever-reliable presence, is also able to elevate what little he’s given and the pair work well with Jerome as differently modulated figures of support.

Even though Robles insists throughout that he doesn’t want sympathy, the film relies a little too much on emotional manipulation, not helped by a cheesy soft rock score, to make us believe in and care about his journey. Robles isn’t hard to root for but Unstoppable, a rousing yet overdone biopic, tries too hard to get us there anyway.

• Unstoppable is out in US and UK cinemas on 6 December and Amazon soon after