Nobody expects a screenwriter to get to the root of racism but this film is far from deep thinking
Early in The Combination Redemption, the aggressive but fundamentally decent boxing trainer John (George Basha) barks and hollers at one of his pupils. “Toes toes toes, get on ya fuckin’ toes!” he yells, reminding me of Clint Eastwood’s grizzled trainer from Million Dollar Baby – except without Eastwood’s age and gravitas. When he is pulled aside by his boss (the late Tony Ryan) and asked “why you pushin’ the kid so hard for?”, John – the film’s protagonist – shoots back: “He needs to be pushed.”
But in the original The Combination, an interracial Australian drama from 2009 that became controversial when one of its actors was charged with sexual assault and (in separate incidents) violence broke out at screenings in Sydney, the point was made that pushing people hard doesn’t work.
Early in The Combination Redemption, the aggressive but fundamentally decent boxing trainer John (George Basha) barks and hollers at one of his pupils. “Toes toes toes, get on ya fuckin’ toes!” he yells, reminding me of Clint Eastwood’s grizzled trainer from Million Dollar Baby – except without Eastwood’s age and gravitas. When he is pulled aside by his boss (the late Tony Ryan) and asked “why you pushin’ the kid so hard for?”, John – the film’s protagonist – shoots back: “He needs to be pushed.”
But in the original The Combination, an interracial Australian drama from 2009 that became controversial when one of its actors was charged with sexual assault and (in separate incidents) violence broke out at screenings in Sydney, the point was made that pushing people hard doesn’t work.
- 2/6/2019
- by Luke Buckmaster
- The Guardian - Film News
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