Redbelt
Rated: R
David Mamet is a hard writer-director to pin down. There's a lot of meat in his writing but you can't simply break down his long history into brief descriptions. If you want to say he makes macho films like Glengarry Glen Ross or Spartan, then there's the counter of State and Main and The Winslow Boy. Like all great-and-business-minded artists, Mamet refuses to be pigeonholed and his latest film Redbelt, is yet another change-up for his body of work. Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a man who has found the downside of honor. Despite his unflappable nobility and strength of character, he refuses to do the practical acts which would finance his jiu-jitsu academy. Through a convoluted-series of events, Terry's values are put to the test and his proverb, "There's always an escape," becomes far more than just a lesson for getting out of a hold. For probably the first time in his career, Mamet's direction is better than his writing. While I appreciate and applaud Mamet for refusing to have characters engage in exposition, the urgency of the story becomes weakened as he uses an inflated cast to push Terry to the climax of the film. While Terry hates competition and finds fixed competition even more repulsive, the film's irony is that he's the protagonist of a fixed film. But Mamet knows how to pace the film and lines that would seem like empty platitudes sound like words to live by when uttered by Ejiofor. No one else could have played this role. In almost all his films, Ejiofor conveys a sense of honor and nobility, even when he plays the villain. We're rooting for Mike not because the world is against him but because a man like this deserves to win. Mamet still has room to grow as a director (he could have used some help in capturing the fight scenes) but he needs to return to the strength of his writing to where his dialogue and plotting is memorable rather than forced. Words by |