Fighting (2009)

the audience applauded

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good movie but grossly overrated

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I don't like to write negative reviews, but with a film like this. I feel like i'm being more then modest. So the film was sold to the audience as an original take on an inspired action film, that all boys and men love "Wrong bet" starring Van Damme. The film stars Tatum in one of his first action roles, and it fails. You can't really call it a remake, because its not. You can't call it an adaptation, because its not. You cant call it an Action film, because its not. You cant call it Drama, because its not. You can call it a bad attempt at film making all together. The film has two, maybe 3 fights in total. Tatum character wins one fight by accident, and that makes him the champion. Yes, we don't see a montage or even hear it in passing dialogue that he beat other fighters or that he is a great fighter. We see him go up against one guy, who slips and knocks himself out while beating the living sh out of Tatum and thats it.The acting in the film is pretty terrible, Tatum didn't even try to act he just appeared angry in every shot. Howard was playing the same role he had played in hustle, just a pimp from the hood, you can say.IF you want to watch this film, Don't! instead look up and stream/ download or watch the Van Damme version Wrong Bet or Lion-heart, much more enjoyable with the same level of acting, but better and actual fight scenes, better story and a really cool soundtrack and theme music.

I love movies that have any type of martial arts in it... i make it a point to try and watch them.This one had great potential... great story-line... a great plot...But OMG, the cast just showed how desperate these people are that hire them... Channum couldn't act to save his life... he was all over the place... so was 'Zulay'... there emotions, the body language and what they were saying were doing 3 very different things...Good actors get the lines and either do them justice or if it is poorly written they rearrange and make it so that it 'fits'... I was so disappointed... my 8 year old who has never acted in his life could do a better job!... it was hideous and cringing!Just because the actors are 'buff' and good looking DOESN'T necessarily mean they can ACT!Most movies like these are predictable but it is the good acting and great lines that makes the movie exciting to watch, this did none of that!If I could i would give it minus infinity.

I can only conclude that the script for this film was only 3 pages long and basically consisted of phrases like "This guy tries to convince this other guy to fight" "this guy decides to fight" "They fight." all the dialogue had to be improvised by the actors and either they weren't good at improvising or the director wasn't paying attention so they just kept talking and talking and talking and they had to edit together the most coherent dialogue possible. There are only 3 or 4 fights in the film. The first fight lasts a total of I believe 30 seconds before the opponent travels head-first into a water fountain. The second fight gets broken up before it even starts, the third fight (if there was one) I don't even remember. The last fight was the only one that was moderately decent.Been a while since I watched this movie so I can't elaborate too much, but forgettable fights, characters you don't care about, awful dialogue. I'd say avoid this one unless you enjoy being bored.

It took Hollywood awhile to dust off the old fighting genre. Here we have 'Fighting", more or less an updated version of Van Damme's Lionheart thankfully with a little more realistically choreographed fighting. There's a few details and character development which has some thought worked into it, but unfortunately it doesn't make up for horribly clichéd romance and painful associated dialog to follow. Terrence Howard does the best he can with his hustler character, but there's not much of interest going on. The fight scenes are better than a lot other movies, but they cant carry the movie alone. The "thugs" and investors are cookie-cutter. There are worse movies out there, but this certainly isn't a good movie anyway you cut it.