On October 9, 2024, Hulu released 'La Máquina', which has earned predominantly positive reviews from critics, currently holding at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the limited series, "an aging boxer whose crafty manager secures one last shot at a title; but if they want to make it to fight night, they must navigate a mysterious underworld force and the boxer's own ailing mind." The ensemble cast includes Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, and Eiza González. Read the full review round-up below.
Simon Gallagher of Screen Rant says, "La Máquina explores a very un-Rocky-like question. What would you do not only if faced with the idea of selling your soul, but with the revelation that it was already sold out from under you? And while the boxing takes a backseat to a wider focus on the world around it, the story mimics a boxing match, landing haymakers, throwing in hopeful counters, and balancing entertainment with some heavy blows. The strongest parts of the show are watching Esteban and Andy attempting to regain control as everything spirals away from them, and the only solution is something neither of them seems willing to accept." Adding, "The miniseries is one part Shakespearean tragedy, with some appropriately grotesque characters, one part Mexican telenovela, and one part Uncut Gems with slightly less fraught anxiety. It places Gael Garcia Bernal's aging boxer in the eye of a storm of unfortunate circumstances - skeletons in his closet he wasn't even aware of, the looming specter of CTE and its very real symptoms, and an organized crime undercurrent that threatens to destroy his life and legacy."
Tim Lowery of AV Club notes, La Máquina may very well hold the record for the number of times pendejo is said in a show’s opening minutes. The word (Spanish for “asshole”) is spit out repeatedly in the energetic back-to-back oners that kick off Hulu’s latest miniseries, as Saul (Andrés Delgado), an assistant of sorts, frantically zips through the hallways and kitchen of a buzzing Las Vegas arena—a nice nod to Goodfellas’ Copacabana shot—in search of a specific brand of tamarind-flavored soft drink. It’s for boxer Esteban “La Máquina” Osuna (Gael García Bernal), and the idea that the aging pugilist can’t complete his superstitious routine before a big fight has his manager and best friend, Andy (Diego Luna), freaking out. That we don’t see this match or even its crowd—the show cuts from the deafening hype of Esteban and his crew strutting in the entry tunnel as an announcer bellows his name to the sullen silence of the fighter looking confused in a neck brace in the back of an ambulance—is not only funny but a hint at the tonal and storytelling surprises this particular project seems to revel in deploying." Concluding, "Written by showrunner Marco Ramirez (Daredevil) and directed with verve and style to spare by Gabriel Ripstein (Narcos), La Máquina has a lot going for it, but its big sell is the obvious one that likely sprung into a lot of minds when the show was first announced: the on-screen reunion of Bernal and Luna (who both, it should be noted, are executive producers here). The two have an undeniably natural chemistry, almost seeming like brothers at times, as evidenced as far back as 2001’s road-trip masterpiece Y Tu Mamá También and as recently as this fall’s Emmys, where the duo co-presented an award mostly in Spanish. This is by no means a hangout comedy—or even a comedy comedy, although, again, it can be quite funny—but you can’t help but just want to hang out with these two as they rib each other. “That’s why you don’t get laid. Just seeing your fridge killed my boner,” Andy teases Esteban early on—and you get the impression some scrambled version of this joke has been said by him a million times. A big question hovering over La Máquina, the same one that hovers over a lot of miniseries these days, is: Would this—especially considering the filmmaking chops on display—actually have been better as a film? That the answer could be no (if only so we can see these two interact more) speaks volumes about their collective charm."
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| Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash |
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