I love Redbelt (2008) in spite of myself. Writer-director David Mamet has a way with words, but despite all his pretensions, he’s in love with macho bullshit as any other blockbuster action type. The movie is set in the world of Mixed Martial Arts competitions and has an eclectic cast that mixes Mamet regulars like Joe Magneta and Ricky Jay with Tim Allen and Randy Couture trying their hand at Mamet-speak. It’s a movie with ridiculous plot twists and a concluding sequence that takes place in another version of reality; the story is a variation on Mamet’s con artist plot-machines like House Of Games and Heist. Yet I still find myself incredibly invested and moved by it all (and I think, like Spartan, its better than Mamet’s more acclaimed movies). A lot of that has to do with Chiwetel Ejifor’s soulful lead performance as Mike Terry, a martial arts instructor with a dojo in LA who is known across a community of cops, bartenders, stunt people; the inciting incident (this film is actually full of them) is Mike’s intervention in a bar attack on a lonely celebrity actor (Tim Allen). The longer con involves Mike’s training idea (a bit similar to The Spanish Prisoner here) as original property that becomes pounced upon by greedy hustlers. I just love Ejifor’s exhausted, noble vibe here – a samurai in a noir plot – and his character’s maxims to his students: “Know the escape” and “Everything has a force. You can either embrace it or deflect it – why oppose it?” (All of which are thematically echoed in the corner he finds himself eventually backed into). I also really love the relationship of teacher to student that develops between Ejifor’s character and Emily Mortimer as a highly strung attorney (who also creates another inciting incident accidentally firing a policeman’s gun in the dojo one night). I can imagine the movie might leave an action fan cold since it is a lot of talking (and only, like, ten minutes of actual fighting). But it invests sincerely in an honour code within a corrupt, capitalistic Hollywood system where Ejifor stands tall as an avatar of integrity; this movie is itself a bit of a con game yet I’m suckered in by it. Great cinematography by Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton, Nightcrawler). Available to rent or buy on YouTube. If you find it ridiculous, I completely understand; I’ll just be over here repeating “insist on the move” as an inspirational mantra to myself. Recommended.
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