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Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tim Allen, Joe Mantegna

Redbelt is the story of Mike Terry, a Jiu-jitsu master who has avoided the prize fighting circuit, choosing to instead pursue a life of honor and education by operating a self-defense studio in Los An...( read more  read more... )geles. Terry's life is dramatically changed however when he is conned by a cabal of movie stars and promoters. In order to pay off his debts and regain his honor Terry must step into the ring for the first time in his life.

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134 critics

R, 1 hr. 39 min.

Directed by: David Mamet

Release Date: April 7, 2008

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DVD Release Date: August 26, 2008

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Flixster Reviews (1,782)

  • EarthlyAlien
    June 18, 2009
    EarthlyAlien
    "Turn to the side. Everything has a force. You embrace it or deflect it. Why oppose it?"

    It's always fun to watch David Mamet Mametize another film genre: the heist picture (Heist), the red-meat war film (Spartan), and now, in Redbelt, the go-for-it s...( read more)ports drama. So how's the Mamet Rocky, you ask? Fast. Lively. In your face. Extremely watchable. And, like its predecessors, so bizarrely convoluted it barely holds together on a narrative level. But the underpinnings are consistent. As Mamet has evolved into a confident and resourceful film director, his world-view has hardly budged. What's changed is that his film heroes manage to protect themselves from life's inevitable betrayals.

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    Understatement is not part of the mix. The rhythm of the rain mixes with the rhythm of the drill as honourable Mixed Martial Arts instructor Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an exponent of Brazilian jujitsu, teaches his prize pupil, a cop named Joe (Max Martini), how to fight with one hand bound: "There is no situation from which you cannot escape." This assertive credo makes Mike a promising Mamet-fim protagonist; that the instructor's pedagogical style is a non-stop torrent of hectoring advice mixed with colour commentary suggests the filmmaker's own faith in the power of language. One of the most truculent literary figures to strut the American stage, Mamet may lack Norman Mailer's intellectual brawn, but he suffers no deficiency of bluster.

    Still, as played by Ejiofor, Mike is open, straightforward, and quietly sweet - a natural victim. His business is going broke, but he's the calmest guy in the room, if not the most honest person on the entire planet. His modest storefront academy, which also houses a fabric business belonging to wife Sondra (Alice Braga), is an outpost of Zen clarity illuminating a bleak stretch of asphalt somewhere in West Los Angeles. Reality intrudes when an apparent junkie, Laura Black (Emily Mortimer) - driving through a monsoon menace looking for a drugstore to fill her dubious prescription - dents Mike's parked car. Hysterically bursting into his dojo to apologize, she further freaks upon seeing the cop and, through some arcane form of film magic, manages to fire his gun through the academy's plate-glass window.

    As illogically as this incident plays, it encapsulates the bizarre laws of cause and effect or action and reaction that govern the film's universe - everyone is at seeming cross-purposes until the final score-settling. Another bait-and-switch caper occurs when Mike visits his brother-in-law's bar to get a bouncer pal some owed back pay and finds himself intervening in a fight to protect a big-time film star (Tim Allen) out for a night of carousing... perhaps.

    Mike and Sondra are subsequently invited to dine at the star's mansion. One needs only a rudimentary familiarity with Mametian paranoia to sense that these suspiciously grateful swells are fitting Mike and the missus for some sort of noose. The Hollywood conspiracy is clinched the next day when Mike visits the set of the star's new film, nothing less than a re-creation of Operation Desert Storm produced by the sinister Jerry Weiss (Mamet axiom Joe Mantegna). Somehow, they're thinking of bringing on Mike as an executive producer. But is it all a plot to force the honest samurai - who has hitherto been too pure to fight competitively - into the ring?

    Cinema is a technology of deceit: No good deed goes unpunished; no bright idea remains unripped off; no one can be trusted. The film, however, wears its honesty on its sleeve. As a director, Mamet favours unambiguous close-ups and uncluttered interiors; baddies' frequent sleek offices, and chaos comes from dark rainy nights. Neither oppressive nor subtle in its symmetries, Redbelt is a cleanly constructed piece of work. The climactic fight scenes are notable less for their competent orchestration and stolidly ritualized weirdness than for their principled opposition to the HK fare (of which I'm so deeply fond of) of the past two decades.

    In press notes so long, detailed, and repetitive they could only have been supervised by Mamet himself, the filmmaker is identified as a long-time student of, and purple belt in, jujitsu. Thus, Redbelt is a personal statement, as well as a sort of naturalized kung fu western, ode to all Martial Arts enthusiasts, and revisionist Popular Front boxing drama. There's a hint of Egawa Tatsuya's Japanese manga "Golden Boy" (the fighter's innate sensitivity), a few allusions to Robert Wise's The Set-Up (the fighter's desperation, the tawdriness of his final bout), and a line ("Everybody dies") ostentatiously swiped from the quintessential John Garfield flick, Body and Soul - if here contemptuously given to the evil producer.

    Like the left-wing, largely Jewish writers of the '30s and '40s, Mamet identifies with the situation of a solitary fighter trapped by a corrupt system. In his case, however, the system isn't capitalism so much as show business. Therein lies a paradox - Mamet attacks showbiz while surrendering to it. The tenets of Brazilian jujitsu (a sport that, like all MMA, is all about intelligence and speed, about using your opponent's weight and strength against him, as opposed to Boxing, which is essentially punching the other guy in the face) may argue there's no trap that cannot be escaped, but the rules of American entertainment insist on it.

    "There's always an escape."
  • kenstachnik
    April 1, 2009
    kenstachnik
    Mamet makes a film and nimble and graceful as the art form at it's center.
  • ceWEBrity
    March 30, 2009
    ceWEBrity
    Thematically impressive and powerfully acted. It's interesting to watch the actors David Mamet assembles and see how well they handle his unique, mannered dialogue. Chiwetel Ejiofor is great, and I've really started to take notice of him - anyone who goes from drag queen to marti...( read more)al artist to insurgency leader without losing an ounce of credibility has some definite acting clout. Alice Braga is also a surprising standout here, with a commanding voice that deftly maneuvers lots of tricky dialogue. It is a shame that the movie completely loses interest in her by the final twenty minutes. Not everyone fares perfectly; Tim Allen is depthless and Emily Mortimer gets lost in her character, giving a surprisingly washed-out performance.

    Unlike most, I like the ending. It's a nifty little attack on capitalism and exploitation and the people who are aware of them, but placed in a position of utter powerlessness to reform the systems. Virtuosos of what was once an art form paraded around as a selling point. Redbelt would seem to make an attack on commercialized martial arts, but in casting two UFC personalities, was this too weighed down by promises to influential financiers? The ending is different, though not completely removed, from the movie's initial dissertations on honor and principle, and it takes an admirable stance on Mike Terry's unflinching asceticism. Redbelt is not ignorant to the real world, but it understands the power of integrity and that there are still people who hold it as an important value.

    All that aside, though, I did find the film somewhat inert. It took me a day to conjure up anything to say about it. Perhaps it was a baseline disinterest in the material, but Redbelt just didn't resonate with me personally. I recommend it, though with a certain caution: don't come here looking for too many fight scenes or over-the-top screeds about honor.
  • sitenoise
    February 5, 2009
    sitenoise
    Chiwetel Ejiofor is fantastic in this film. Beautiful. But that's all it's got going for it. The fights are staged and shot poorly. The script really stretches the viewer's ability to suspend disbelief. Typically Mamet styled con game that just doesn't hold up. And there were tim...( read more)es when time didn't seem to make sense. Too bad. Good cast. Could have been, or should have been, better.
  • kiriyamakazou
    October 30, 2008
    kiriyamakazou
    David Mamet offers up a deep bit of martial arts drama, only to be damaged by the fact that he is David Mamet. This leads to some convoluted plot involving deception and twists which are unnecessary in exploration of the main character or the films themes. Simpler could have been...( read more) better and so could some probing into the supporting cast. Especially Tim Allen who shows he IS an actor with a wonderfully understated performance. The film is hard to get into at first as you struggle to see where it's coming from. Once all is revealed though it becomes easier to take in, though the ending after the final fight was all a bit gag inducing for myself.
  • Phonex
    November 14, 2009
    Phonex
    The characters and situations are very interesting for the first two acts that it is more than a little disappointing to see Mamet settle for the generic requirements of the martial arts genre in the third act. Perhaps Mamet meant it as a parody but whether the embrace of the her...( read more)o?s morality is played sincerely or cynically, it comes at the expense of undermining everything the story has developed before. It does not help that Mamet?s shortcomings as a visual stylist shows most prominently here as he does not even bother trying to give the real sense of a fully crowded stadium in his camera angle choices.
  • kairy
    November 12, 2009
    kairy
    This movie is so moving, intelligent and great! See it for some great acting and a Life Lesson in Courage & Integrity.
  • mayorcrunch
    November 7, 2009
    mayorcrunch
    Chiwetel Ejiofor es uno de los mejores y mas versatiles actores trabajando actualmente. El es el centro emocional de "Redbelt", la pelicula mas reciente de David Mamet, logrando una excelente actuacion que hace que la cinta sea fascinante.
    Aunque tiene elementos de peliculas de...( read more) deportes, dramas y thrillers, "Redbelt" no entra a ningun genero. En vez es como un estudio psicologico de Mike Terry, un hombre idealista que, junto con su esposa, da clases de Jui-jitsu. Pronto sucederan eventos impredescibles que cambiaran sus vidas.
    Mamet es un escritor fascinante y aunque su historia a veces se desvia y la resolucion es un tanto absurda, "Redbelt" es una cinta absorbente y muy entretenida.
  • DOGGREEN
    October 29, 2009
    DOGGREEN
    Honor Vs. Greed. Great Action & Drama.
  • xcalibr377
    October 20, 2009
    xcalibr377
    do the right thing! not Spike Lee, but literally...do the right thing

View All Redbelt Reviews

Critic Reviews

October 1, 2008
Pete Hammond, Hollywood.com

The detail and clear devotion he has for the sport may actually have the effect of distancing the rest of audience from his film. full review

September 26, 2008
Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times

The Mamet rhythms are pleasingly in place: the repetition-rich dialogue, the head-butting close-ups as men go ego to ego. full review

May 9, 2008
Marcy Dermansky, About.com

If you try to piece the story together, the logic won't hold. But trademark Mamet magic happens: requisite razor sharp dialogue, a complicated turn of events, and terrific cast of characters whose per... full review

May 9, 2008
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

So gifted is Mamet as a writer and director that he can fascinate us even when he's pulling rabbits out of an empty hat. full review

May 9, 2008
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

Redbelt's ultimate Ultimate Fight moment feels sorely lacking. full review

May 2, 2008
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

Mr. Ejiofor gives a commanding performance, perfectly calibrated in what's withheld just as much as what's revealed. full review

May 2, 2008
Claudia Puig, USA Today

Anchored by a powerful and nuanced performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mamet's latest writing and directing effort is a compelling drama about the world of martial arts fighting. full review

April 30, 2008
Armond White, The New York Press

Mamet's self-seriousness stifles Redbelt's cinematic potential. It's so tightly structured it offers no surprises -- especially not the satisfaction of watching action-movie conventions reward a share... full review

April 28, 2008
David Edelstein, New York Magazine

So how's the Mamet Rocky? Fast. Lively. In your face. Very watchable. And, like its predecessors, so bizarrely convoluted it barely holds together on a narrative level. full review

April 18, 2008
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Even allowing for a few slips in pacing and judgment, Mamet is on his game, and that is a sight to see. No con. full review

View more Redbelt reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments

  • YLOWBSTARDreturns
    May 9, 2008
    YLOWBSTARDreturns
    One of the best films of 2008, and sure to be one of the most overlooked!
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