On the couch

So a big budget disaster by Mr Catastrophe himself, Roland Emmerich, seemed like a good way to kick off my consumption of Bluray films. I mean if ever there was a guy you could trust to put it all on the screen it’s Emmerich.
Never one to put stars or even subtlty over spectacle, he’s hit the Hollywood money button dead-on with such hits as Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow – not what could be considered measured, character driven pieces, but wildly successful and entertaining nonetheless.
What could be more perfect for the director than a potential world-ending scenario that has not only historical credentials that predate the Bible, but has also had a load of tinfoil-hat wearing believers waxing apocalyptic on the internet for as long as alt.fruitloop.kerrazee has been around for them to compare apocalypse survival notes and new techniques for hat making? The damn thing has “hit” written all over it.
Except for one small detail – instead of focussing on what might be a little new, or different about the film’s basic premise – the world’s going to hell in a handcart and it may well have been predicted by the Mayan’s about 5,000 years ago – Roland instead does what seems to be a greatest hits of both his and several other directors disaster films.
From giant tidal waves and mental weather (The Day After Tomorrow, Perfect Storm) to the breaking and strengthening of family bonds in an extraordinary crisis (Independence Day, War of the Worlds) to massive, international cover-ups executed for the ultimate betterment or survival of the human race (The Core, Armageddon), Emmerich leaves no cliché unripped-off.
Despite something of a talented cast, every single character falls into some half-assed and occasionally borderline insulting stereotype (Woody Harrelson’s crazed conspiracy nut being a notable exception) and, other than a few imaginative, but unexciting set pieces the only thing to look forward to is the end. Which doesn’t come nearly soon enough.
From a steaming pile of unreal, surreal tripe to a slice of life so painful and joyful it almost hurts to watch.
Saviours is a classic “little film that could” that, but for the boxing heroics of supermiddleweight Darren Sutherland at the Beijing Olympics might never have seen the light of day.
Filmed over an 18-month period, directors Ross Whitaker and Liam Nolan documented the life of St Saviour’s Olympic Boxing Club in inner city North Dublin. Focussing on three of the club’s standout boxers – scrappy local fighter, Dean Murphy; Ghanian asylum seeker Abdul Hussain and Sutherland who, at the time of filming, was torn between his commitment to boxing and his desire to succede in college and give himself options for the future beyond the fight game.
Filled with more rough-hewn characters than Scorsese’s wildest dreams, Saviours was filmed on a shoestring but serves as proof of what magic can be woven when a good documentarian finds the right subject and allows them to speak.
The three stories are as much about the life of the fighters as the fights themselves. Time in the gym is referred to constantly as “work”, and rightly so, as the aspiring ugilists endure rigorous routines and endless rounds in the ring. But, as all the best movies are less about the action and more about the moments in between, Saviours shines when it shows the men and boys behind the gloves and gumshields.
Can Murphy keep his head and his health together long enough to live up to his potential? Will the club’s efforts help Hussain earn his refugee status? Will Sutherland return to the ring and become the fighter and leader his trainers know he can be?
The fact that the stories’ ends are dictated by real life, not the whim of a script writer pandering to an audience’s desire for a happy ending makes the film all the more thrilling to watch.
History has recorded the answer to at least one of these questions, and its tragic postscript. Sutherland’s story is made all the more poignant for the young man’s obvious desire to something more then just a great boxer and his subsequent suicide.
Even in the immediate afterglow of winning a senior title, he still finds time to contemplate how to balance his studies with the training that must surely lie ahead.
A sad story. A fantastic film, not just for fight fans but for anyone interested in real drama.