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Redbelt (2008)

Director: David Mamet

Time Out rating

Average user rating

2 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

David Mamet has always been preoccupied with aggressive competition between men, so it’s only natural that he should make a film about fighting. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Mike Terry, a principled martial arts teacher who’s married to Sondra (Alice Braga), the daughter of a Brazilian fighting clan, and is too noble, or humble, or something, to compete. A series of bad turns involving a protégé, a jittery lawyer (Emily Mortimer), a dodgy movie star (Tim Allen) and his dodgier factotum (Joe Mantegna) raises the stakes, however, and before long that big-money contest is looking tempting…

Ejiofor (right) appears in nearly every scene and does a fine job with both the fighting and the slightly precious sermonising required of him, but Mamet has tackled these subjects – alpha-male rivalry, conjuring deception, threatened principles – before and to better effect. The plotting is contrived, the supporting characters two-dimensional, and the ending slides from predictable to absurd to maudlin.

Author: Ben Walters

Time Out London Issue 1988, Sept 25 - October 1

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User reviews of this film

Karl Crose said...

Posted on Jan 08 2010 20:49 I thought the film was marvelously executed. What Mamet wanted is what we get...a wonderful character study. Even past the last moment of the film we are left to wonder about the nature of the two characters in the last frame. The Professor, who was not in the film at all, and Mike Terry, who was in practically every shot, embrace in what initially is perceived to look like a victorious moment. Honor is upheld, integrity maintained. But then I started thinking perhaps the Professor is telling Terry through his gesture that he, too, is involved with the shadiness of it all, and that Terry needs to succumb as well. Perhaps that is why Terry breaks down and cries as the Professor embraces him. Sure, it's macabre, but then so is Mamet at times. And it's that way of thinking and character interpretation that makes Mamet a genius.

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Nick said...

Posted on Mar 02 2009 11:30 You are a complete retard.

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