Fighting Review
Listen, when you go see this movie you’re probably not expecting much.
Which is actually kind of sad, because this underground fighting movie has the magnificent Oscar nominated Terrance Howard and director Dito Montiel’s A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints was decent, energetic, personal and had the best performance I’ve seen Channing Tatum give.
But, you were right actually on this one.
It’s even worse than what you thought, really.
You probably figure, stupid plot, fights will be cool, that’s good enough right?
Nope.
The fights are not cool. You literally can’t tell what’s going on half the time. Why editors think this is a good idea, I can’t fathom. Please rent Tony Jaa’s Ong Bak if you want to see good fights.
Terrance Howard is trying something new here, but it comes off weird. He’s almost like a Jewish grandmother, written as this sort of fussy hustler. Howard does this weird nasally accent and it just plays strange onscreen.
Guy’s a magnificent actor, but it feels like he is wasting his time in this.
Channing Tatum is totally dull, which is a shame since he actually has some legit acting skills, but he uses them in movies no one sees like Stop Loss and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.
The plot in this movie is pretty thin and not really very compelling. The fights aren’t impressive. The acting’s not impressive. None of it’s impressive.
Never Back Down similarities
They are tonally pretty different movies and their stories actually are quite different too it’s just funny in both cases some random way-too-good-to-be-in-this black actor appears, teaching some good looking young white actor, and the love interest has an unusual name (Baja/Zulay).
Good Music Though
Any movie that plays Rick Ross and Saigon AND Marvin Gaye gets points from me.
-Dan Benamor