Scanialara
You won't be disappointed!
Laikals
The greatest movie ever made..!
Juana
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
Haven Kaycee
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
fredroyer
Mamet discovers cinema and I looked forward to this! Most of his movies had been like radio plays but not only does the camera move around in this one, there are action scenes!Now, I hate exposition and so does Mamet. What I think he was trying to do here was combine as many genres and traditions as he can in a single film so that the exposition is taken care of.The camera eye is in the middle of all the fights, raging bull style. But scenes where Mike is supposed to be doing transcendental meditiion, the camera is "zen". Then when he has to spring into action, so does the camera.We have a public performance that folds into a sports movie, but the sports is shifted to television medium as part of the noir conspiracy.It doesn't always work and it doesn't tie up all neatly at the end, but it was different and I'd rather see a genius reach for a great idea than the same boring stuff thats always on tee vee.
paid in full
It took me years to come back and finish this movie. Back then, I felt it was too slow.
Fast forward to the past weeks it still took me multiple sittings to finish it.
But its worth taking your time.
Mamet tells a beleivable and engaging story via a cast of quality acting performers.
MUSCLEMAN
First I have to apologize if I made mistakes as English is not my first language.When this movie came out, I refused to watch it. It just seemed like a retarded MMA exploitation movie, like never back down, made to make money from tapout t-shirts wearing teens. I had also heard that the concept of the film was that they were fighting with a handicap, like a hand attached behind the back etc. I mean, how dumb is that seriously.Yesterday, me and my 2 friends decided to watch the movie. To give you an idea, we all three have martial arts background. My two friends trained kickboxing and boxing for several years and I have myself been training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for 5-6 years. We are all film fans, from Haneke to Van Damme. What I mean is that we didn't hate the movie for it's lack of action or for being boring.I was not familiar with the director but i knew he was praised as a talented director and writer, so we gave the movie a chance.The plot is set around martial arts, BJJ and MMA in particular. The thing is, it's like the director did not do any research about the subject. It was SO RIDICULOUS to see the main character saying the cheesiest lines ever about his views on martial arts and life. All that samurai nonsense talk was SO over the top and dumb it was embarrassing. It really showed the director had absolutely no clue about the subject.The script was absolute garbage. Are we really supposed to believe that a gigantic conspiracy was setup, all of this within a few days, to actually steal what would appear to any normal human being as the dumbest idea ever; the concept that the fighter that picks the black rock or whatever has to fight with a handicap. Let me be clear to all of you with no martial art background; the guy with the handicap has the percentage of 0 chance to win the fight. I mean come on people. Of course, the conspiracy continues when the magician (who of course has a piercing in his eyebrow) is hired to fix the outcome of the fights! Are we really supposed to believe that the cop would kill himself for pretty much no reason! That Tim Allen (who is playing a big Hollywood tough guy actor for some reason) would give a 20 000$ watch to a stranger and than disappear when it is discovered that the watch has been stolen? Beyound stupid. and I'm not even going to mention the ending nonsense.I don't think Chiwetel Ejiofor is necessarily a bad actor, but he was just not the right guy to play the part. He doesn't look tough, particularly intelligent or charismatic.Finally, the fight scenes. They were so poorly executed it was embarrassing to watch. BJJ is not at all a flashy martial art as is let's say karate but still it was absolute garbage. The fight scenes were a mix of Steven Seagal stuff mixed with elementary school yard type wrestling.This movie had IMO absolutely 0 positive aspect. Even the hot girlfriend (way to hot for the hobo looking Chiwetel Ejiofor) turned out to be a backstabbing bitch! I just cannot understand how some of you might think this is remotely close to being a good film. It would have made sense if we would live in a fantasy world.
morphears
Having read lots of reviews I decided on this film tonight over Bad Teacher, which by IMDb standards has a better rating....OMG, it's a laugh, it's a bit of fun but good god the dialogue if you have the subs on, well you'll realise the whole film has 50% at best, the rest is made up of repeats of the last sentence the character said, i'm not saying it is terrible, as I spent a couple of hours waiting to see what might happen next, but annoyingly I was left dissatified.... if you like old school eastern Jackie Chan or jet Li, you'll hate this, if you think a slightly updated Best of the Best (which I loved but now realise is a bit well....crap) then you'll give it a go and think....we'll it's not bad....but it ain't good peeps!!