Red Belt

[Frank]

Surprising little flick. Also very effective no-bull martial arts movie(except for the Hollywood ending).

I've come to a variety of conclusions after having seen it:
-The Lead actor should be Black Panther
-The blond policeman would have been perfect to play Duke in the GI Joes movie
-Marvel must give their Daredevil franchise to writer/director David Mamet(let him do it as a trilogy if it must)

[Jared]

Mamet and MMA is such an odd yet interesting mix, I do have to check this out. Chiwitel Ejifor (sp) was impressive in his fight scenes in Serenity. Is the guy legit?

I'm curious as to how well brazlilian ju-jitsu (I gather that's mostly what it is) translates into a movie though. There's a reason movie fights are traditionally slug-fests or flashy kung fu exhibitions.

[DWEarhart]

Mamet kept the fighting style pure, as well as the spirit behind learning martial arts in the first place.

I really enjoyed Redbelt. Chiwetel Ejiofor was great, as was the rest of the cast was very good. Redbelt will likely not be considered one of Mamet's more memorable films, but like Spartan, I think it's a solid piece of work.

[Frank]

Mamet kept the fighting style pure, as well as the spirit behind learning martial arts in the first place.

I really enjoyed Redbelt. Chiwetel Ejiofor was great, as was the rest of the cast was very good. Redbelt will likely not be considered one of Mamet's more memorable films, but like Spartan, I think it's a solid piece of work.

I thought it was neat seeing an auteur like Mamet taking a subject like this, going deep into it and give it the proper respect. Try to make it work as a movie. I agree it's not amongst his greats but fascinating to say the least.

[chrisgiff]

i remember when i first heard about Tim Allen being in an MMA move called Redbelt. I was horrified...then i heard David Mamet was directing.

i loved this movie. you can tell that Mamet really knows his stuff. In the special features on the DVD it talks about him having a purple belt in BJJ.

I think the jiu-jitsu translated perfectly. I mean a lot of what you see is more self-defense bjj than straight submission wrestling like in a regualr MMA fight. The self-defense stuff is translated great to the movie because it is pretty brutal in a slug-fest way. It's flashy enough for a movie without being flashy at all.

I love that he had Machado, Inoue and some of the other real martial arts guys in it.

Mamet is a great director. I would love to see him do a comic movie.

[Ontir]

I think there was a thread for this film when it came out.

Ejiofor (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0252230/) is a great actor, who has done some really diverse parts over the last several years. Although a wee bit older than I'd start Black Panther, in every other way he's brilliant and right on the mark. If you want to see how totally opposite he can be, check out Kinky Boots, in which he co-stars with "Uncle Owen" from the last two Star Wars films. Also, he and Don Cheadle are fantastic in Talk to Me!