With “Maquina: The Boxer” Disney+ takes another step towards series for adult audiences in the absolute sense. Created by Marco Ramirez and produced by Searchlight Television, “Maquina: the boxer” is a series that relies on a great cast, simple but effective writing, as well as an ability to combine thriller, comedy, crime and above all boxing, which has always been a great protagonist of the small and big screen. Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna and Eiza González are the main faces of a series that knows how to capture attention and take us into a murky, dangerous, miserable and deceptive world.

“Máquina: the boxer” – the plot

Time is the most terrible opponent for a boxer. Esteban (Gael Garcia Bernal) known as Máquina, Argentine boxing champion, idol of his country and beyond, among the best welterweights in the world, knows this very well. However, Esteban now faces a rather complicated end to his career, due to an unexpected and terrible defeat by KO in the first round against a rising Filipino star. For Esteban the situation is complicated, also because looking in the mirror, he sees new wrinkles, scars that weren’t there before, he finds it increasingly difficult to stay at his weight, the ailments multiply, and the reassurances of his manager and best friend are of no use Andy (Diego Luna). When he manages to get him an immediate rematch with the opponent who so sensationally defeated him, few in the media and observers believe in his rebirth, including his ex-wife, the investigative journalist Irasema (Eiza Gonzalez ), with whom he remained on excellent terms. Instead, on the evening of the rematch, after a dramatic start, Esteban manages to land the decisive blow, wins by knockout in the sixth round, and finds himself fast-forwarded towards a chance for the title in Europe.

But he can’t imagine that that victory will be the beginning of a nightmare. In fact, in a short time, dark and disturbing men begin to knock on his door, making him and Andy understand that, for various moments in his career, he has been helped by rigged and convenient verdicts but now, now is the time to settle the bill. If they refuse, death is ready to visit not only them, but also their families, in short, those they love and there is no face, there is no number to call, there is only the certainty of something powerful but invisible that dominates everything and everyone, without distinction. “Máquina: the boxer” is therefore a series that takes us inside that boxing, which in recent decades has suffered not only a loss of popularity, but also a decisive loss of credibility, by virtue of manipulations, scams, and corruption in general which has spread within each Federation. Here too we see absurd verdicts and boxers reduced to being mere tools of ruthless and sordid promoters. “Máquina: the boxer”, of which both Bernal and Luna are also producers, knows how to conquer thanks to their talent and their verve with which to paint broken, defeated characters, typical products of an environment that draws from the least and tends to bring them back in his latest protagonists.

A series in which dream boxing becomes a nightmare

“Máquina: the boxer” is a story divided in half, because on the one hand we have Esteban, who like many boxers is already starting to suffer from episodes of dementia, has hallucinations, loss of contact with reality, but is perfectly aware of being at sunset. But like every boxer, the last match (as much as he hates to admit it) is always the next one. Diego Luna’s Andy, on the other hand, made almost unrecognizable by very heavy make-up, is his manager, his promoter, his shadow. Their relationship is essentially that of a parasite clinging to a creature now pushed to the limit and he, distorted by plastic surgery, vicious, alcoholic, dominated by his mother Josefina (Lucìa Méndez) is a symbol of a moral ambiguity which in reality concerns the whole The environment of which he is a product is a mere instrument, perfectly aware of being so. They both knew their lives were in danger, but pride and fear pushed them in two opposite directions. Only Eiza Gonzalez’s Irasema stands as a symbol of a search for the truth, of that journalism that can still make a difference today, but which naturally finds obstacles of all kinds in the name of money and power on its path.

From that single case, his research obviously broadens, affecting not only the sports industry in general, but also politics, the media as a tool for controlling the emotions and moods of a public that wants blood and pamper your fickle nature. Perhaps a little too many irons in the fire in “Maquina: the boxer”, there is a clear excess of ambition, but it cannot be denied that, winking now at Martin Scorsese, now Brian De Palma, the series presents itself as a total destruction of the rhetoric of boxing as redemption, that formula that made Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa saga a myth later imitated by many other epigones. However, this is absolutely not the case, boxing here is a hell of the desperate, the boxers are victims, they are horses to run until they collapse and Esteban is just the next on the list. He knows it, he’s always known it, and his helplessness is just another of the many positive elements in terms of writing and acting. It’s very difficult to place this series on a genre level, it’s a mix of a bit of everything, there are also some noir undertones, then there’s crime, thriller, even dramedy, as well as sports films, but the concoction that comes out of this operation is certainly pleasant, powerful and capable of exciting throughout all six of its episodes.

Rating: 7