Apologies for inaction Boxing has always attracted the attention of filmmakers. The confrontation of real men, in which the strongest wins not only by body, but also by spirit. Constantly overcoming yourself on the road to success. The glitter of spotlights and the smell of huge money around a small rectangle bounded by ropes. The very atmosphere of the boxing match, it seems, creates ready-made scenarios for which there is no need to invent anything. Take it, record it, shoot it, and the audience will roll. And so it happened - "The First Glove", "Rocky", "Mad Bull". Dozens of successful boxing films have been shot, and who counted them? But even the most disastrous of such paintings received their share of light reflected by the ring. At least they were discussed by fans.
About the picture of Mabrouk El Mehri fans of boxing will hardly want to talk. Even despite the fact that a significant part of its action takes place in training and competition halls, and boxing matches are filmed with knowledge and look quite realistic. Only here too different philosophy of "Virgil" from the one that hovers over the ring, which is cleverly captured and recorded in the frame of the best films about boxing. Victory at any cost, self-improvement, strength of spirit, overcoming, courage, integrity of personality, drama, adrenaline... None of this list in the film of French origin is not in sight. Instead, fatalism, a philosophy of inaction, calm contemplation and detachment, seasoned with irony towards those who run somewhere, strive for something and gain their place under the sun. And the corresponding protagonist, who does not want victory over his opponent in the ring, not fantastic prizes and fame, but a calm and measured life in which there are no “winners” and “losers”, no successes and defeats, no joys and sorrows – only silence, peace and peaceful love. "Inch' Allah!" “All things are God’s will,” they say. And the main character of the film Virgil Betancourt instinctively shares this principle.
The problem for him, and at the same time the main active force of intrigue, is the need to act to maintain his peace and tranquility. In the past, not too lucky boxer, Virgil quit boxing after the arrest of his adoptive father Ernest. Togo was convicted of murdering a petty gopnik sent with a knife to his son after a "wrongly" battle ended. Unwilling to deal with the mafia, not having the strength and talent to break into serious boxing leagues, the guy calmly sells shawarma in a diner with his friend, visits his father weekly in prison and clumsily tries to care for the girl Margot, whom he met during these visits. But one day, Virgil learns that his father is terminally ill and is about to be released. But the old boxer Ernest does not know that his son betrayed his case and left the sport, which means that the measured and correct life is about to end. Virgil has to throw everything and find any way to get back into the ring. At least for a few months.
Someone else might have created a dramatic story of “overcoming,” “rising to glory,” “becoming a person,” but not El Mehri. Everything Virgil does in the film is to preserve the status quo. Disappointing his father is far more terrifying to him than the inconvenience of returning to the sport. The fights themselves, victories and defeats do not interest him: only in the refraction of the attitude of his father or beloved girl to them. The guy does not even suspect that his father has long known everything, and the girl is about to go to a much brighter and more brilliant rival in the ring. But if you sit on the bank of the river for a long time, the corpse of your enemy will surely swim by. No action should be taken for this. It all happens by itself.
Virgil continues to wait, passing through a series of sad and funny incidents around and around him (El Mehri does not forget to entertain the viewer with lyrical scenes and humorous sketches in between boxing fights), but does not accept the main idea of the sport - all for the sake of victory. Win - well, lose - it happens. The girl left - sad, the girl came back humiliated and beaten by an opponent - you need to protect her, because this is the order. Virgil enters the ring for his father, for Margot, for his friends - he is not interested in boxing. Moreover, even going out to fight, he does not dream of winning. Fight, fight, and then be as it will be. He is not an athlete, not a winner, but an ordinary man. The life and philosophy of which the director frankly admires, because it is right.
It does not matter that this philosophy contradicts the philosophy of sports and Western society in general. El Mehri is a man of a different culture. But the postulates of this culture in the context of sports drama look, to put it mildly, strange, forcing us to talk about the complete failure of the picture. After all, the West is the West, and the East is the East and they will not meet together.