Fighting Review

Published by Jeff Leins on: April 22nd, 2009

The title of the movie Fighting is borderline false advertising.  A film that pushes brutal brawls front and center should have more than a few fleeting moments of bare-knuckle boxing.  Flurries of frantic fists are followed by vast stretches where little to nothing happens, only for another round of disappointment.  Where is the fighting?  Someone throw a punch.  Anyone.  I’ve seen more fights break out at the library.

Dito Montiel’s New York-based story brings mundane drama down to street level.  Shawn McArthur (Channing Tatum) is scraping together a living re-selling cheap knock offs on the sidewalk.  After he defends himself from a team of thieves, Shawn is recruited by Harvey (Terrence Howard), a slick scam artist eager to split prize money from an underground fight league.  The matches are “anything goes” and staged in rings made only of greedy gamblers.  Winner gets cash, while the loser (and the movie audience) gets nothing.

How Harvey mistook a street skirmish for the makings of a great fighter is never explained.  It turns out to be a sweet deal for the hustler because he merely schedules the bouts, sits back, and pockets his cut after.  Shawn calls Harvey his coach, but no teaching ever takes place.  In fact, the only training Shawn ever does consists of push ups and shadow boxing on the subway.  Well, at least he’s throwing punches.

A contrived love interest spawns from a creepy stalking and a feeble attempt at a rivalry has all the subtly of a knee to the groin.  Sloppy scenes of boring dialogue sound almost improvised, as if the actors were trying to come up with a story along the way while stretching for time.  If that was the case, they failed at both.  Its 105 minute run time is a mindless drag through an all-too-familiar plot.

The characters speak distractingly slow, especially for a crew of New York hustlers.  Any southerner would have sounded like a fast-talking Yankee among the painfully dull cast, who each use the same clunky cadence to trudge through aimless dialogue.

Channing Tatum’s plodding delivery is so tedious it makes Shawn a dim protagonist, so dumb it’s a wonder he’s able to dress himself in the same white undershirt every morning.  To contrast with Tatum’s lumbering persona, Terrence Howard adopts his own variation of bland by mixing in an uncharacteristic whiny tone with the drowsy rhythm.

I would have preferred Never Back Down’s high school paint-by-number over Fighting.  At least they actually fought in that movie.  I would have even sat through Tatum’s Step Up dance performance instead.  Fight fans are better off renting Redbelt for realistic mixed martial arts.  Even YouTube clips of backyard brawls would be more entertaining.

1.5 out of 5.