LAFF 2013: TAPIA

Johnny Tapia in Tapia.

Sparring with life

By John Esther

Like most professional boxing champions, Johnny Tapia came from a very poor neighborhood where kids loved to fight. Although Tapia was a relatively small guy -- as an adult he stood around 5'6" 114 lbs -- he was extremely quick, strong and, more importantly, a naturally smart fighter. He knew how to psyche out his opponents while pumping up a crowd, especially if it was a local crowd. While I am not much of a fan of boxing, Tapia's boxing skills are very entertaining.

Unfortunately, for director Eddie Alcazar, they are about the only entertaining elements in his documentary, Tapia, which made its world premiere last night at the Los Angeles Film Festival to a semi-filled theater. (Reports of a sold out crowd for the screening are an exaggeration.)

Raised by his grandparents after his father was murdered when Tapia was in the womb and his mother brutally raped and murdered when Tapia was 8, Tapia grew up on the toughest streets of Albuquerque, New Mexico. At a very young age it was clear he was a natural fighter. He beat everybody in his weight bracket (sometimes larger guys, too). But just when his career was about to really take off cocaine held him down.

After rehabilitating himself, Tapia got back into the ring, rose through the ranks, eventually earing five world championships before retiring. He won three of them in different weight divisions.

Yet the sadness and anger over his mother's vicious death (other family members would die along the way) coupled with his addiction to cocaine would keep pulling Tapia back down into a whirlpool of despair and near death experiences. He was declared clinically dead five times.

While such trials and tribulations will probably help Alcazar's upcoming feature adaptation of Tapia's life (Shiloh Fernandez will play Tapia), Tapia's religious, determinist attitude in the documentary gets boring after a while. Tapia keeps going on and on about his purpose in life as if there was some great creator fashioning some important grand narrative on earth and Tapia was merely playing his part. Tapia also talks about how he does not want to hurt anyone one moment then makes it clear how violently he would respond if he ever met his mother's killer. And, of course, he is a boxer. Pugilists do not win fights by not hurting another human being.

Simpleminded and tedious after a while, Tapia may have benefited from interviews with others who knew Tapia or perhaps a few psychiatrists. Then there is the issue with his father's supposed murder. That gets raised and dropped way too quickly in the documentary. A thorough examination of his death may have helped, too. Death by heart failure at 45?

There are some big questions here, but Alcazar does not subject audiences to any truths behind the basic bouts of this boxer in and outside the ring.

Tapia screens at the Los Angeles Film Festival: June 19, 7:40 p.m., Regal Cinema. For more information: Tapia at LAFF 2013.

TRIBECA 2012: SLEEPLESS NIGHT

Vincent (Tomer Sisley) and Vignali (Lizzie Brocheré) in Sleepless Night.

Dust to windbag

By Don Simpson

In the time span of a brutally intense 24 hours — including a sleepless night for everyone involved in the film — director Frédéric Jardin’s taut thriller, Sleepless Night begins with a drug heist gone horribly awry and snowballs into a relentless powerhouse of non-stop action from that point onward. In a tale in which there are very few good guys and countless shades of baddies, it is difficult to surmise where the protagonist, Vincent (Tomer Sisley), falls.

Vincent possesses a bag of cocaine that was stolen from two cronies employed by a local drug lord named Marciano (Serge Riaboukine). Marciano kidnaps Vincent’s son and offers Vincent a trade — the boy for the cocaine. Left with no other choice, Vincent makes his way to Marciano’s labyrinthine discothèque called Le Tarmac with no plan, only the overwhelming parental desire to save his son.

Vincent spends a majority of the film in a hopeless cat-and-mouse game with two drug lords, their minions, and at least two police officers. An assortment of nightclub staff and patrons are also engulfed into the tornado of fisticuffs — early on, Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” throbs from the sound system to serve as a precursor of what is to come. Dust will be bitten, you can be certain of that. Party people saturate every orifice of Le Tarmac as the block rockin’ beats blend seamlessly with the non-stop pummeling of flesh and shattering of bones. The intensity — and length — of some of the fight scenes is almost laughable, especially when we see the same characters moving around as if unscathed one scene later.

FILM REVIEW: ROADIE

Roadie (Ron Eldard) in Roadie.

White lined fervor

By Don Simpson

Jimmy Testagross (Ron Eldard) — the eponymous protagonist of Michael Cuesta’s Roadie — is a 40-something guy from Queens with an unfortunate last name (that earned him the childhood nickname of “Jimmy Testicles”) who has tirelessly schlepped Blue Öyster Cult’s gear for 26 years, a thankless career if ever there was one. While on the subject of thankless, BOC is leaving for a tour of South America soon, and Jimmy is getting the runaround from the band’s manager. It seems the washed-up band is leaving their washed-up roadie behind.

After dedicating over half of his life to BOC, Jimmy has no friends to speak of and nowhere to go. As Jimmy drifts hopelessly towards destitute poverty, he is drawn closer and closer to his childhood home. But Queens is not a happy place for Jimmy; he “escaped” it for good reason. His high school buddies — the same Neanderthal numskulls such as Bobby (Bobby Canavale) who christened him “Jimmy Testicles” — who stayed behind seem uneducated, adventureless and ambitionless to Jimmy. Bobby is exactly who Jimmy has rebelled against; guys like him are the exact reason he abandoned Queens many years ago. What makes matters worse is that Jimmy’s high school sweetheart, Nikki (Jill Hennessy), married Bobby. How could she settle for someone like him?

As is often the case for those of us who purposefully moved away from his or her childhood neighborhoods and dread any return visits, Jimmy’s first means of escape from this harsh reality is alcohol — and lots of it. Reconnecting with Nikki and Bobby further escalates Jimmy’s self-destructive behavior by adding cocaine to his dangerous recipe of escapism.

Roadie accurately represents the conflict between those who have “escaped” their childhood homes and those who chose to stay behind. Cuesta’s dedication to the gritty authenticity of his subject is quite impressive and his casting of Eldard as Jimmy turns out to be divinely inspired.