Fighting

What is the point of this film?

We've all seen the story before. An aimless young man caught up in a street fight makes an impression on a passing promoter and is drawn into the world of illegal bare-knuckle fights. There he has to learn to control his own abilities, to examine his conscience and temper his pride when asked to throw fights, and to learn what's really important to him. Along the way he gets a girl and comes to terms with his broken relationship with his father. And that's it.

There are points at which this tepid tale hints that it might take a more interesting direction (can our hero master the temper that ruins all his personal relationships? Will he start wondering why he's always hustled away so fast and not allowed to see the guys he's taken down? Will he rebel against the rich betters who treat him like an animal?), but it always opts for cliches instead. Add a cop-out ending which wants to be 25th Hour but comes across more like Pretty Woman, and you've got one of this year's most boring films.

If Fighting had a star with even a hint of charisma, this might not matter. Rocky, after all, was pretty predictable but got by because the audience really felt for its hero. But Channing Tatum stumbles through his role as if he were half asleep, and makes the viewer feel much the same. Curiously the underground world which this story inhabits seems to be completely drug free, which is ironic because one would have to snort a lot of speed to stay alert through its long passages of drawn-out drama. Whoever thought combining mumblecore with an action movie could possibly be a good idea? The impression it inevitably creates is that Tatum's character is stupid, which gives him rather less to lose when he gets punched in the head.

The actual fight sequences are few and far between, but do improve things a bit when they appear; they're ugly, visceral, suitably vicious, a good antidote to the romanticisation of such brawls which inadvertently followed Fight Club. The problem is that they're just not enough to support the film. If you want to see a good punch-up, you'd be much better off watching Thriller In Manila. Perhaps this should be more exciting because there are no rules, because it's raw and risky, but how well can that work when we know fine well these are really actors and stuntmen performing carefully choreographed routines with on-set medics standing by?

Sometimes when I'm as busy as I've been lately it can take me a few days to review a film I've seen. I got to this one as quickly as possible because I'm afraid that, within a few days, I'll have forgotten it completely.