Red Belt Movie

Anyone else seen the Movie Red Belt? I saw it last night with some other people from Judo and a few friends who don't do Judo and was generally dissapointed. For those who haven't heard about it it is David Mamet's take on martial arts, the UFC and revolves around a JuJitsu instructor. I was somewhat looking forward to it as I've liked Mamet's work and particularly his sharp dialogue.

Only one of our group liked it

Spoiler

She liked it because she liked how it was critical of Hollywood and the entranced money system in Hollywood and the professional mixed Martial Arts. I thought a lot of it seemed very contrived and forced and was particularly dissapointed in the idea of the guy sacrificing everything for a principal, winning and having this big Hollywood moment where he receives the greatest honor possible in his art.

What I was most dissapointed though was that the fights seemed very poorly shot. I know Mamet isn't really known as an action director but how hard is it to just pull back the camera so you get the whole sense of what's going on in a fight instead of doing a lot of confusing quick close ups? The actor who played the main character certainly seemed to know what he was doing and he was fighting one of Machado brothers in the last fight so they could've easily staged a very believable looking fight.

Just curious what others thought of it especailly anyone else who's done martial arts.

 

Don't know. Never saw "You Got Served"

 

But the writing isn't that good either. There's a lot of good Mamet hard boiled dialogue but the overall story isn't that good.