HANDS OF STONE Review

More than anything Hands of Stone is frustrating because there is clearly a large scale to the film and real ambition from both writer/director Jonathan Jakubowicz and the entire cast, but as is true with many a biopics Hands of Stone tries to do and tell its audience too much in too short a time span inadvertently making the film more about a series of events than the characters participating in those events. In theory this is supposed to be a movie about the relationship between Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán (Edgar Ramírez) and legendary trainer Ray Arcel (Robert De Niro) and while this goal is communicated well enough and understood there are so many extraneous things going on around the two central characters the film becomes distracted by its own plot strands. The word I'm looking for is "scattershot." Hands of Stone is a broad strokes approach to the biopic, but in being so it communicates such key elements in haphazard ways thus forcing the audience to not invest as much as they should or even want to. Granted, the film does certain things right as this viewer in particular had no prior knowledge of Durán or his story yet I was immediately interested in the real life events the film was depicting. That is all to say the film is a little all over the place. This especially becomes true after the film effortlessly builds to Durán's first bout with Sugar Ray Leonard (Usher Raymond) and completes that fight within the first hour of the film. While the film could have certainly told us all we needed to know about Durán through the lens of his Sugar Ray fights and all of the drama those entailed Hands of Stone instead feels the need to go further by not only telling us Durán's story as a boxer, but his story as a Panamanian activist, Arcel's story that deals with the New York City mob and a long-lost daughter even going as far to include Leonard's perspective on certain things. Add in the familial drama that Durán creates and deals in with wife Felicidad Iglesias (Ana de Armas) and their five children and there is enough material here for an HBO miniseries. Unfortunately, Hands of Stone is a feature film that clocks in under two hours and while it carries real momentum in the first hour leading up to that first showdown with Sugar Ray that energy is largely lost in the second half of the film leaving us with a movie that might have been something really special and unique did it not try so desperately to adhere to the worn-out sports drama template.

THE COBBLER Review AKA The Interesting Case of Adam Sandler's Career

The case of Adam Sandler is a continuing saga of fascination for me. It is hard to pinpoint what exactly his motivations are whether they be in the realm of making movies because he genuinely loves movies or simply in making money. Unfortunately, at this point in his career many wouldn't even consider his movies to be comedies anymore as it's apparent his domination over his little part of the box office has been slightly waning as he's continued to repeat himself as the same guy in Grown Ups (10%), Just Go With It (19%), Jack & Jill (a mere 3%, which only slightly better than the 0% Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star scored which Sandler helped write and produce), That's My Boy (his only deviation in character and highest ranking tomatometer score at 20%) Grown Ups 2 (7%) and last years Blended (14%). That, in his mainstream films, Sandler has had to resort to sequels and a third reunion with Drew Barrymore let us know he's running on fumes to preserve the lifestyle he and his family have grown accustomed to. Jack & Jill was the turning point that shifted the atmosphere around his movies from always being dismissed by critics yet typically having a strong enough following of fans who showed up to watch him do his thing to an all-around frustration. It became evident the ever-reliant audience was shrinking and might one day be no more and so Sandler has turned both to the ever-profitable family film market in the form of two Hotel Transylvania films and this summers Pixels as well as trying to return to more subtle, dramatic work that might not only reaffirm to all of his haters that he can actually do good work, but that he actually cares about the craft and art of making movies. The bad news is that in his effort to subvert public expectations he has delved into two independent, inherently more artistic pictures that have consequently been ravaged by critics. On paper both Men, Women & Children and The Cobbler should be home runs in terms of critical darlings: credible directors, one relevant to todays issues and one with a rather interesting premise, both with stellar supporting casts and yet it still seems the Sand Man can do no right.