Vital Stats: The Official Site. Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 68%
The Hype: I’ve long been a Mamet fan, and I absolutely loved Spartan. I was looking forward to seeing Redbelt but never got around to it until now. My brother constantly hounded me to watch it, so I figured it had to be pretty good.
The Logline: An American samurai film set in the L.A. fight world about a Jiu-Jitsu master who turned his back on prizefighting to operate a self-defense studio, but is conned by a cabal of celebs and fight promoters to enter the ring in order to regain his honor. (thanks to Variety)
The Verdict: With Spartan, and now with Redbelt, Mamet takes a well-used, often mindless film genre and treats them seriously, giving them more than one level to work on. In Redbelt, we follow Mike Terry, the head of a a failing jiu-jitsu school as the big bad world forces its way inside his pure dojo.
As the real world intrudes, things get messy. The confusion is intentional as you struggle along with Terry to recalibrate your moral compass and find north. The film works best when you feel his dilemma, when you don’t know what choice is left. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t really resolve itself well. The performances, from the bit players through to the hero, Terry, are all really strong, as you’d expect from a Mamet film. The problem though is that several of the characters roles aren’t clear and in the climax they seem to be unmotivated servants of the plot. Emily Mortimer’s character is fantastic and her sub-plot was at least as – if not more – interesting than the main plot. The last few scenes she appears in her actions don’t make a lot of sense and you get the feeling that there are parts of her story missing. The failure to tie her story into the heroes is a glaring problem with the film and there are similar problems with the wife and the movie star (although Tim Allen is surprisingly decent in a straight role – maybe we can convince him to stop ruining comedy?).
This isn’t a must-see. It’s definitely worth watching, and it works as a fight movie – with a little more intelligence than is typical, and it has some great performances in it – but the film is let down a little by an unconvincing conclusion.
The Rating: 3 1/2 stars
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