Redbelt
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Paymer, Tim AllenBrand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: French (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.40:1
Running Time: 99 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-08-26
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Product features:
- TESTED
Movie Reviews of Redbelt
Movie Review: An Exciting Venture Into Many Worlds of Film & Ideology
Summary: 5 Stars
We need more writers like David Mamet. We need a guy who can define his characters so well admist a labyrinth of seedy developments. This man has proven through his plays, his screenplays, and his few directorial efforts that we want to see the brushstrokes as well as the finished painting. REDBELT is among his best work, in any field.
It's impossible to narrow most of Mamet's work into one description, but I think the one that fits best is "samurai film noir". REDBELT is an interesting blend of Akira Kurosawa and...well, David Mamet. I refuse to compare this to kind of complicated storytelling to Dashell Hammett or Quentin Tarantino, because frankly Mamet deserves his own genre like those great writers.
Chitwetel Ejoifor plays Mike Terry, an instructor whose Brazilian jiu-jitsu dojo in Los Angeles is in dire straits. There is not enough money to keep the business open. The American public is more into the televised sport of mixed martial arts ("MMA"), rather than the methodology behind the combat. Terry's own traditional beliefs haven't helped, either. His code of honor --- which teaches that sports weaken a fighter --- is an admirable but crippling quality. It's the struggle between commerce and tradition that fuels most of REDBELT.
The movie begins rather strangely. The opening credits feature Asian percussion and instruments, across blood-red letters. We feel like we're watching a samurai combat picture. Mike Terry is coaching his two grappling students with such intensity, constantly reitereating "Find your escape" and "You know this! Very Good!" While this is going on, a disturbed woman is driving in heavy rain, looking for a place to pick up some drugs (I think). It'd be impossible to explain what happens next, but try to imagine how in the world this opening sequences concludes with a misfired gunshot into Mike Terry's dojo window. Confused? Well, that's David Mamet for you.
Oh, that's just the first 15 minutes. It's hard to tell where the thrust of REDBELT begins, because in typical Mamet fashion, we meet a multitude of interesting characters and learn a great deal of information...and it's all important by the end. The disturbed woman is Laura Black (played by the always-solid Emily Mortimer), who becomes a part-time student of Terry's. These scenes are very crucial, because without them, we wouldn't learn Terry's code in convincing fashion. It's a great credit to Ejoifor that the code of honor doesn't feel forcefed down our throasts. He embodies this character with total conviction, as if he lives every second to this way of life. There's a harrowing scene when Terry violently forces the uneasy Laura to face her fears, and brutally escape Terry's grasp. It's powerful, moving, and convincing. Their relationship is perhaps the most developed, but it's certainly not the only one Mamet throws at us.
There are several other story threads, each with deceptive significance. In a surprising dramatic turn, Tim Allen plays Chet Frank, an action star whose latest trip to the bar turns into a brawl. Mike Terry's intervention to save Chet opens up new doors for him to enter the moviemaking industry, and perhaps offer legitimate consultation on Chet's action sequences for his next movie. It's great to watch our self-righteous protagonist justify his involvement with a commerical enterprise, and struggle to keep his honor while dancing with some of Chet's possibly corruptive devils. Fans of Mamet's work will love to see the reliable Ricky Jay and Joe Mantegna ooze as smooth manipulators of the confidence game. Watching these two veterans play all angles at such rapid pace can't be the sole work of a writer's script; Mantegna & Jay deserve just as much credit.
The bar where Terry saved Chet is run by Bruno Silva, a fight promoter who's been after a man of Terry's skills for some time, to give televised MMA some new life. You've probably seen the relucant athlete versus the sleazy promoter in other sports movies, but thanks to Ejoifor and Rodrigo Santoro (as Bruno), the delivery is crisp and engaging. How Silva taunts and attempts to use Mike Terry is murky at first, genius when it develops, and slightly underwhelming when the twist is explained.
There are other pieces of this delicious pie that I haven't discussed. Watching David Mamet weave his screenplay's multiple threads together is a thrilling delight, and only suffers when the third act is reached. Due to plot developments that I will not give away, Mike Terry is forced to fight in an MMA undercard tournament. The tournament is given an extra promotional boost when one of Terry's ideas (based on an ancient teaching tool) is prostituted into an industry he swore to ignore. How Terry is forced to enter this world makes sense. The betrayals he undures are acceptable. The significance of the final showdown is satisfactory.
Where David Mamet screws up is in his execution. Before placing his hero into the inevitable contest, Mamet first shows us an MMA fight between two unimportant martial artists. It's nice to learn how the fights are regulated, but the sequence goes on for five minutes...way too long, and distracting from the main story. When Mike Terry learns how he has been used, there is way too much information to take in at once. The twists are fine; the pacing and delivery are off.
And when David Mamet chooses to close his story with a fight scene, it's a thrilling piece of action, but slightly hypocritical to Mike Terry's battle to avoid commerical fighting. And the conclusion is thematically satisfying, but played rather melodramatically. Again, great ideas are marred by uncalculated pace. We could've had a masterpiece if Mamet had utilitzed a more appropriate style. If it weren't for the superb performance by Chiwetel Ejoifor, REDBELT's closing scenes would've collapsed. Thankfully, a solid idea was redeemed by a terrific actor, even when a director didn't choose his shots correctly.
Those last few paragraphs may sound like deal breakers, but I've only devoted so much attention to them because a masterpiece was on the brink, and instead David Mamet has left us with an imperfect albeit excellent drama. His ambition and slow progression of the plot & characters is absorbing for most of the picture. When REDBELT reaches its final stretch, your mind is forced to selectively keep & remove certain bits of information.
If you can forgive REDBELT for its great ideas that don't reach their full potential, then this is an excellent film well worth your time. But if your the type of moviegoer who believes that the bottom of the 9th inning is all that matters, then you might wanna pass it up.
What do I think? --- I believe REDBELT is another strong work from David Mamet, a terrific blend of samurai pictures & film noir, a movie full of exciting ideas and interesting characters, and (in spite of its flaws) one of 2008's best movies.
OVERALL = 9.0 / 10......***1/2 out of 4
***If you're into DVD features, the commentary track with David Mamet and former MMA champion Randy Couture is a pleasant listen, with great bits of detail for those who may not understand the world of mixed martial arts. It's a quality-over-quantity package.***
Summary of Redbelt
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