Beatdown (2010)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Fresh and Exciting

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Brandon (Youngblood) is a tough street brawler whose brother Frankie is killed by gangsters. Now the gangsters are after Brandon for the 40,000 dollars his brother owed. Brandon then flees to a small Southern town where he develops a romance and also lives with his paraplegic father (Trejo). It's not long before Brandon enters the underground Punchfighting circuit where the reigning champion is Victor Dean (Balfour). It turns out the burgeoning romance is with Dean's sister Erin (Abromeit), and Victor's not happy. Brandon moves up the ranks and eventually faces off against Victor. Who will win? The biggest problem with this movie is the editing. There are weird, unnecessary cuts, as well as puzzling camera zooms and spins. The fights are pretty brutal when you can see them, as there are plenty of blood-soaked fences (yes, fences!) to show the extreme nature of the fighting. Also quite extreme is the now-prerequisite playing of the song "Wildfire in the Streets" by Tommy Fields. Surely the makers of all these modern-day Punchfighters must have known that fans don't watch just one of these things. If you like one, you probably will like them all, and fans would notice the constant reappearance of Tommy Fields.The plot is also haphazard, as there is a quick setup with the gangster Gino Ganz which kind of falls by the wayside until much later. All the clichés you know and love are present and accounted for - the training sequence and the silly love story, with its insipid dialogue. There's plenty of "Barnfighting", as Southern "redneck" stereotypes are beaten by Youngblood. There's, inexplicably, a TapouT octagon in the middle of a state fair in the deep south. Their tentacles reach from there to prisons everywhere, as Locked Down (2010) proves.Youngblood is relatively likable, but as you might expect, Danny Trejo is the best actor in the movie. He seems like he doesn't care, but it could be his character.If only the directing and editing were competent, this would be a not-bad modern-day Punchfighter. As it stands, Beatdown is not really a success.for more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

This is one of the most painful film experiences I have ever endured. The acting is terrible. The editing is extremely irritating. The story has all the dramatic depth of a six year old's school creative writing assignment. The thinly hidden marketing saturating the movie is distracting. Fight scenes, awful, and in total, around 10 minutes max of the film's 90 (agonizing) minute runtime. You wanna see real fight scenes, watch Asian cinema. Writing, terrible. Characters, wooden and with stupid 'backstories' lifted in a hurry from a billion other (better) films. This whole thing reeks of self-indulgence and money, but offer no shred of entertainment. None. Even like Sunday hangover brainless action fun. It is that bad. Do not ever watch this film, even for free.

how did this movie get all these really good actors in it? the story is really predictable. it shows basically the same fight scene over and over. the main character basically just goes around beating everyone up and then taking to his hot girlfriend, and then beating more people up, but it's not bad enough to actually be funny. the camera man liked to zoom in on everybody's face really stiffly to show how pretty/famous they were. but even though Rudy Youngblood does have a beautiful face, it just doesn't do the trick for 2 hours. There were jokes that could have been funny but the timing was all wrong. Everybody was wearing a cowboy hat, and i liked how every time they went on a farm there was a different generic animal noise in the background, first chickens then cows etc. The editing looked like was done by a 5 year old who just discovered i movie for the first time. the special effects completely distracted from the story, but that was OK since there wasn't much of one in the first place. there were so many parts in slow motion for no reason, that once there was actually something dramatic you would be completely zoned out and miss it! and finally the soundtrack was terrible.

I don't know where to begin. I really enjoyed this movie for a number of reasons. First, the romance between Erin and Brandon did not involve a gratuitous sex scene and the nudity in the film had nothing to do with the main characters. Their relationship was extremely wholesome and they spent the majority of their time on screen talking about their feelings.Second, It was full of action packed fights with a lot of blood in a realistic manner. Third, while the ending was somewhat predictable, I felt there was enough of a twist to keep it fresh. This is not a Rocky type movie! I find most movies make the hero a goat first and this one was full of excitement from beginning to end.I thought Michael Bisbing who is one of my favorite fighters was good as Drake, he was playing a former fighter that took fights from time to time to pay the bills. His line delivery was as a matter of fact instead of with feeling but Michael brought his consummate cool which made him a likable supporting character. Props to Susie Abromeit (Erin)for playing the drop dead gorgeous girlfriend without the winy you'll get yourself killed crap. Rudy Youngblood (Brandon)and Eric Balfour (Victor) carried the film as actors and I thought they were the two standout performances in the film. You may remember Brandon's dad from "From Dusk till Dawn" (as the bartender) his character was a paraplegic ex-abusive parent and widower that had found religion to avoid talking about the past and dealing with his emotions regarding his son.If you are a fan of MMA and enjoy a good fight, then this is a movie you could watch again and again. Unless your girlfriend/wife/significant other is in to extreme realistic violence, you may want to watch this without them.