Fighting: But that's not all... (Fighting (DVD))

Member Name: venceremos

Product:	Fighting (DVD)
Date:	22/06/09 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Up to date and modern

Disadvantages: Tries to please everyone?

The bar's never really set very high when you settle down to watch an American kung fu movie. You kinda sit down, wait for the goodies and baddies to present themselves, watch the action, see the good kid beat his way through a series of low-grade villains to reach the Mister Big, whereupon evil is defeated in a huge showdown, and perhaps a damsel rescued and duly walked off into the sunset.

This is a movie very much of the 21st century. For an audience now educated in the ways of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), gone are the unrealistic spinning heel kicks and preposterous flying axe kicks that still pervade the world of Chinese fantasy, which steadfastly remain more art than martial. Instead this is set in the very real world of New York today, where Shawn McArthur (Channing Tatum) is a vagrant trying to make ends meet by illegally selling knock-off goods on a street corner. He's spotted vigorously defending his wares by a small-time black hustler Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard) and invited to participate in a bare-knuckle fight for the sum of $5000.

McArthur wins when his Russian opponent is knocked head first into a water fountain, and is out cold. At the victory celebration at the nightclub, McArthur meets Hispanic waitress and single mother Zulay, for whom there is obvious romantic interest, but also Evan Hailey, a figure from his so far shadowy past, who taunts him about his fractured relationship with his wrestling coach father.

McArthur teams up with Harvey Boarden to enter further fighting competitions, and the relationship between the two deepens, with Boarden taking McArthur off the streets and giving him a secure place to sleep. McArthur's relationship with Zulay also deepens, and they date as far as time and money allow. Their relationship is tested, however, when McArthur suspects Harvey and Zulay of an affair. The couple's secret in fact is that Zulay places illegal bets for Harvey, but by the time McArthur realises this, his jealous mind and confrontational attitude has done much to damage his relationship with them both.

One final fight against Evan Hailey is arranged for $500,000, with Boarden wanting McArthur to throw the fight so that his gangster superiors can make money from it. If McArthur wins, Boarden is a dead man. Can Boarden trust McArthur to do the right thing fighting against the man who has brought back painful memories of the past with his father?

I'll go no further with the plot. Plots are never the strong point to martial arts movies anyway. It's an action film, and the action shows that the modern audience now appreciates the difference wrestling and jiu-jitsu has made to the world of martial arts, as there are armlocks, leglocks and choke-holds aplenty here on top of the expected punches, kicks, knees and elbows.

But what makes this film stand apart from others, in the moments of pause between conflict, is the level of sensitivity shown in depicting the New York underclass of today. Certainly, there are no swarms of kids on rubbish tips like Mumbai, but we're under no illusions that life is an easy one. "Fighting" goes on beyond the physical sense in which McArthur excels. Zulay struggles to support her mother and child on waitress's wages in a run-down tenement building. Boarden's relatively superior socio-economic status as a ticket tout is a fragile one - its illicit nature means he's one wrong move from sliding all the way down capitalism's slippery snake to where McArthur started. Director Dito Montiel pulls no punches in his depiction of how close his characters are to hopeless penury. When McArthur leaves Zulay's home after meeting her family, we are presented with the sight of a shambling vagrant with obvious mental health problems talking to himself in the corner of the elevator. Dates in the blossoming relationship between Zulay and Shawn at cheap roadside diners, while fun and heartwarming, are nonetheless made poignant by their poverty.

Finally, the film is worth watching as much for what it doesn't say about one issue that's staring us in the face the whole time: race. A few decades ago, perhaps, a white hustler picking up on the talent of a black boxer might have been the expected plotline. No more. This role reversal marks the end of the lazy stereotypes in the 20th century, perhaps partly as a result of the ethnic make-up of the UFC, but also perhaps to reflect a certain reality of New York street life. Boarden, McArthur and Zulay by necessity seek alliances beyond their own ethnic groupings to get on in the world. The fact that we can see it happen for ourselves without being preached at, or without race even being mentioned, indicates Montiel's willingness to let his audience see things for itself. As a result, non-fight fans who have allowed themselves to be dragged into seeing this movie might after all conclude that this is a film more carefully crafted than the title led them to expect.

Summary: A worthy effort