Movie #51 Redbelt

Been awhile since I had a chance to update the "crappy movies I have recently viewed" segment of Boy Hates Girl, but it's back...for your soul-killing displeasure.

#51 -Redbelt (2008)



David Mamet and Ultimate Fighting mixed martial arts? Yup. It goes a little something like this...

Guy 1: "You should go to the fight?"

Guy 2: "The fight?"

Guy 1: "Yeah, the fight."

Guy 2: "I don't fight."

Guy 1: "You don't fight?"

Guy 2: "I don't fight."

Guy 1: "You should."

Guy 2: "I should what?"

Guy 1: "You should fight."

Guy 1: "I don't fight."

And then Rebecca Pidgeon comes in and fucks it up while a magician pulls dice out of his ass. I'm only half kidding. No, less than half kidding.

It's not that Redbelt is a bad movie---it's not---but who the fuck cares about mixed martial arts? I know the "sport" is growing in popularity, but it's mostly a bunch of guys who hold each other and roll around on a mat until one of them taps out. I don't deny the skill involved, but I object to the premise that it makes for a good movie (gay porn excluded). Chiwetel Ejiofor is an actor I like, but as the lead in Redbelt his character is so zen and dispassionate that it makes him a little too dull to root for. More interesting is Tim Allen as a boozy Hollywood star whose path crosses with Ejiofor's during a bar brawl. Only one problem...Allen vanishes from the movie just as his character strikes up some curiosity!

It's a little unfair to call this a "Mamet" movie. Although he wrote and directed it, and although it has his usual cast of cronies like Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay and Rebecca Pidgeon, this is just a fight film. It's a genre piece, pure and simple. Whatever elevated class you want to associate with a Mamet script, it's really not in here.

So, does it work as a "fight" film? Meh.

Grade: 4/10