Plot: After a devastating loss, Esteban “La Máquina” Osuna is at a low point in his boxing career. Lucky for him, his manager and best friend Andy Lujan is determined to get him back on top. But when a nefarious organization rears its head, the stakes of this rematch become life or death. While struggling to mount a comeback, Esteban must also juggle his own personal demons and protect his family, including his ex-wife Irasema, a journalist who finds herself on a collision course with the dark side of the boxing world.
Review: While many boxing films and series have focused on the sports aspect, La Maquina skews towards the fallout and repercussions of being a successful athlete. Lifelong friends Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal have starred in four films together and produced countless more, but La Maquina is their first television project. Coming twenty-three years since they co-starred in the classic Y Tu Mama Tambien, Luna and Bernal have experienced success together and apart, with each having been involved in the worlds of Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, respectively. Told across six episodes, La Maquina is a powerful drama that showcases what Luna, Bernal, and Eiza Gonzalez are capable of in a narrative that originally treads familiar territory before differentiating itself as the plot unfolds. As Hulu’s first original Spanish language effort, this impressive production blends sports, drama, and humor for a unique series event.
La Maquina follows the lifelong friendship between boxer Esteban “La Maquina” Osuna (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his manager Andy (Diego Luna). Esteban is at the tail end of his successful career as a fighter and is poised for a championship match when he loses spectacularly. Desperately needing a financial windfall dependent on Esteban, Andy orchestrates a quick rematch and does whatever it takes to ensure it goes off in their favor. All the while, Esteban contemplates his life after boxing, including his relationship with his two sons and his ex-wife, Irasema (Eiza Gonzalez). Esteban also must face the fallout of a career of getting punched as he begins experiencing hallucinations, which may be a sign of a more serious medical diagnosis. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that more than just athletics is at play as a sinister force returns to collect what they are owed.
Both Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna are immeasurably talented performers and have distinct characters in La Maquina. Esteban is the more grounded character whose challenges romantically and emotionally are subtly played on screen as Bernal carries a full range of emotion in his eyes alone. We learn so much about his life, especially his difficult childhood, through flashbacks that Bernal must encapsulate all of that through facial expressions. Conversely, Diego Luna is almost unrecognizable as Andy, with a wig, lip fillers, make-up, and more cosmetic enhancements that do little to hide Andy’s massive inferiority complex, which is accentuated by a creepy relationship he shares with his mother, Josefina (Lucia Mendez). As their friendship begins to crack under the immense stress of their business relationship and familial bonds, Bernal and Luna portray Esteban and Andy as fictional shadows of their real-life friendship, much like how their chemistry came to the screen in Y Tu Mama Tambien, Luna and Bernal manage to imbue these characters with a similar bond decades after that classic Alfonso Cuaron film.
As good as Bernal and Luna are here, Eiza Gonzalez is phenomenal. Despite being over a decade younger than her co-stars, Gonzalez holds her own as the veteran journalist and ex-wife of Esteban. There is definitely a love shared between these three characters that runs deep, and Irasema serves as a voice of reason, as well as the one who calls Esteban and Andy on their lies and excuses. Gonzalez has shown a prowess for strong leading characters, which she carries into this supporting role. Because La Maquina is fully in Spanish, all three actors show that they and the supporting cast can bring as much intensity to roles regardless of the language of the project. Set in various locations ranging from multiple in Mexico to Las Vegas and beyond, La Maquina often straddles the line between genres but never feels like a foreign production but rather a global one.
Based on an original story developed by Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, Julian Herbert, and Monika Revilla, La Maquina is directed by Gabriel Ripstein and has scripts by Marco Ramirez, Andres Fischer-Centeno, and others. The six-episode series starts out dramatically with a long take that shifts into some elements of humor before completely shifting into drama again. There is a surreal nature to some of the story, which begins to take on more complex elements involving drugs, murder, crime, abuse, and some other reveals, which I will not spoil here. By the penultimate episode, La Maquina reaches a precipice that risks alienating the audience with a bold plot twist that surely pays off in the finale. Because the series is the brainchild of the two lead actors, La Maquina carries an additional heft thanks to the personal investment from both Luna and Bernal.
La Maquina is more focused on the fallout and tangential impact of boxing rather than being a sports story. Sport is key to who Esteban Osuna is and how Andy reaches the level of success that he does, but unlike the short-lived FX series Lights Out or the Rocky and Creed franchises, La Maquina uses boxing as an entry into the lives of these characters while exploring the depths that Esteban and Andy must go to as they try to reconcile their personal demons with their public success. Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna are phenomenal actors in everything they do, but they reach a different level when they work together. La Maquina is a wonderful companion piece to their previous collaborations and deserves to be seen by fans of the actors and those who love solid dramatic stories.
La Maquina premieres all six episodes on October 9th on Hulu.
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