Thrilla: A Review

THRILLA

The COVID-19 pandemic hit everyone in many different ways. For Mike "Thrilla" Davila and Adam "Bomb" Collaride, it put both their business and championship dreams close to ending. The documentary Thrilla chronicles their joint struggles while giving us a background into the men themselves. Well-told albeit with a few hitches, Thrilla is a rarity in documentary filmmaking: a film that documents something.

Thrilla, the documentary notes, was filmed during the summer of 2020, a tumultuous time as the world was in panic over the COVID-19 virus among other things. Among those whose lives COVID-19 impacted are Mike Davila and Adam Collarile, jiu-jitsu fighters and newly established businessmen. While the world was in the grips of social distancing, Davila and Collarile were focused on getting Davila to make the required weight to compete in the Eddie Bravo Invitational, a Jui-jitsu competition in El Paso, Texas. Davila, whose nom de guerre is Thrilla, knows that winning the Invitational will be not just great for his and Collaride's Legends Martial Arts business. It will be a crowning achievement in his career.

When they arrive in El Paso, Davila is at 150 pounds, but he must get down to 145 with days if not hours to go.  That he is at 150 pounds is actually a major improvement from where Davila was seven weeks earlier, which was at 188 pounds. That means Davila has to lose 43 pounds in less than eight weeks, a daunting task even for a fit athlete. As Thrilla counts down the weeks, noting the impressive weight loss, we also see the inner strength that both Davila and his friend and business partner Collaride have.

We learn from them about their backgrounds: their struggles in bonding with their fathers, their determination to build up something not just for themselves but for others. Mike Davila at one-point remarks that he had get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Collaride, for his part, notes that Mike is a sweetheart but when he is on the mat, he's a killer. 

They had become friends over time, though Mike initially was a bit leery of how joyful Adam was. At long last, they work on opening Legends Martial Arts studio, getting help from families and friends to make their dream come true. Legends opens on February 8, 2020. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo orders all non-essential businesses to close March 22, 2020. Owing to the proximity of jiu-jitsu, Legends finds itself fighting for its life almost at birth. Davila and Collaride may be down, but by no means are they out. They keep working, keep training and push on. They push on with their business and push on with the tournament. Will Thrilla win in El Paso? Will Mike and Adam not just become legends but build a legacy for future legends?

Thrilla is a wonderful portrait of two men who are both competitors and brothers-in-arms in so many ways. The most obvious way is in competing in Jiu-jitsu, a field which Davila and Collaride are passionate about. They also, however, compete within themselves. Davila's fraught relationship with his own father, Collaride's determination to leave something good behind, all are showcased in Thrilla. 

The film is not just about these two men, but about the importance of friendship and loyalty. Adam, a strong jiu-jitsu fighter in his own right, will accompany Mike to Texas despite the New York COVID restrictions because Mike needs someone in his corner (COVID prevents an audience). There's more than poetry to that analogy. These men, despite their different personalities, know that they have each other's backs. Mike, Adam, another instructor by name of Steve Ramos, and all those who go to Legends: they are more than training their bodies. In a sense, they are training their hearts and souls. 

It takes a great skill to make a weekly countdown of weight loss almost tense. Credit to director Ricardo Aguirre, Jr. for managing to build up suspense as we get a weekly countdown. Davila goes from 188 in Week One to 179 in Week Two, 172 in Week Three, until we get to 12 hours before the official weigh in. The tension and suspense are built up so well, and by this time we know and care about Mike and Adam, that when we see the disparity between Mike's weight scale and the tournament weight scale, we are as equally flummoxed and frustrated when they do not match.

As a side note, I marveled at not just how much weight Davila was able to lose in a relatively short amount of time given how I have twenty pounds that stubbornly won't shift after two years. I was amazed that Mike Davila is at the time of the tournament 37 years old. 

Intentionally or not, Aguirre, Jr. in Thrilla made a film about more than two men training for a jiu-jitsu tournament and working to keep their new business alive amidst the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic. He made a film about friendship, loyalty and how a man can measure his strength from more than whom he can defeat on the mat. 

Davila and Collarile are business partners and friends, but they are also distinct personalities. Even on how they came up with the name Legends for their workout studio appear to have different origin stories. I believe Mike said that it came due in part to their proximity to Sleepy Hollow, trading in on the Legend of the Headless Horseman. 

However, in their stories of where Legends came from, we see their life philosophies come through. "Everyone wants to be a legend", Adam says, keeping to the idea of the importance of leaving something behind. Mike, for his part, notes on the importance of what comes between your birth and your death. Referencing how headstones are inscribed, he says, "That small dash is your legend". Despite any cliches about fighters, these two muscular and fit athletes are quite poetic.

Thrilla has one or two issues that stick out. A particularly embarrassing moment is when on-screen text notes Governor Cuomo's decree. It reads that Cuomo "orderd" (sic) businesses considered non-essential to shut down in order to combat the spread of COVID-19. I also think that Thrilla is not strictly speaking about Mike "Thrilla" Davila, so it is a bit of a misnomer. Adam "Bomb" Collarile is just as much a part of Thrilla as Thrilla is, so I was a bit puzzled why the film was named Thrilla. Granted, these are minor details, and hopefully the misspelled word is fixable. It just looks bad.

"Opening the gym has always been a dream, and dreams come slow", Adam observes halfway through Thrilla, emphasizing the last word. Dreams, however slow or small they seem to others, are worth fighting for. Mike "Thrilla" Davila and Adam "Bomb" Collarile, two decent men well profiled in Thrilla, show that legends are not born but made, and made with others beside you.

DECISION: B+