If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or get my blog updates by email. Thanks for visiting!

Directed by: David Mamet

Written by: David Mamet

Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tim Allen, Emily Mortimer, Alice Braga, Rodrigo Santoro, Joe Mantegna, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay

Please throw out everything you know about this movie outside. The film is filled with a series of twists that even leaves the main protagonists in a knot that almost parallels his teachings of the Brazilian martial arts Jiu Jitsu. I was totally taken back by the ability of the director to take a simple story but weave so many subtexts around that it might leave the ending a bit too relaxed for many peoples taste.

The film is a total character study that is taken through several cocoons of ideas with a final free for all fight that will reveal everything. We are not really sure who to trust and what is that is going to be the outcome of many of the interactions that the main character Mike Terry with the rest of the cast. There are so many incidents that could have just gone either way. But this is where the writing of Mamet kicks in he leaves always surprised at the different plot turns. The film goes at a brisk pace concentrating at some bigger picture that is clearly not visible at the beginning of the film.

By the looks of the first scene we are certain that Mamet is up to no good when it comes to character sketches. He is very stingy with details but this provides us with several puzzles that make the film more interesting to discover while we slowly walk through. Fights are used as a medium to give us more insight into the characters head. Terry is a person who is really easy to read when it comes to daily life. But it is in the fights that he is master of mystery and he becomes his own person.

In many of the scenes Mamet makes his craft come on to the fray by letting the decisions by the character make the necessary shifts in the plot. Not one of the scenes in the movie is really wasted there is also no use of repetition in dialog to make something more significant. Mamet makes use of his understanding of the various aspects of his character to create so much intervening rambles.

There is also a love for the sport that has made Mamet take up this film. The idea of mixed martial arts has really caught on in many parts of the US. His love is totally indicated by the use of fights not just for entertainment but just give us certain traits of each of the fighters. This is something that I really wanted to see in many movies a careful look at how each fighter possess a unique style that is part of their very essence. Mamet has achieved this to a certain degree but has really paved the way for more movies to come that share his thoughts on fighting.