It’s a new year. People usually take this time to set a goal to better themselves. I thought there is no real way to better myself more than by watching more action films. So I decided to start off the new year with a healthy diet of action. An action film I have never seen every week. Here we go.
Shawn McArthur (Channing Tatum: GI JOE 1 and fifteen minutes of GI JOE 2, HAYWIRE) is a struggling street hustler of good intent. He has come from Alabama to try to make it big on the streets of New York and when we meet him in FIGHTING he’s not doing so hot. He’s homeless and his hot ticket items are counterfeit Harry Potter books which are obviously a tough sale to the literate pedestrians of NYC. He’s not exactly bringing home bank.
To make matters worse, he finds that he is hustling on someone else’s territory. Some guys approach him and tell him to pack up and move along. He’s willing to oblige until he’s pushed and then we learn in addition to being a really bad street hustler, Shawn is an accomplished street brawler. He fends the guys off and that impresses their boss Harvey (Terrence Howard: IRON MAN 1, GET RICH OR DIE TRYING) enough to try to take him under his wing in the underground fighting world.
And that’s where this movie gets going. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one and I definitely wasn’t expecting it to go the route it did. With it being about illegal street fighting, I expected it to go pretty dark at some point but it really never did. FIGHTING definitely takes a more naturalistic approach. Most of the dialog feels improvised, the story doesn’t exactly drive the movie. It’s Shawn and his kind of lovable laid back ways that take us on his journey. In that respect this is a pretty optimistic and warm take on the genre and reminded me of what ROCKY was to boxing movies. That’s not to say this is on that level, but it certainly has its charm.
I’m not a big Tatum fan but his work here is sincere. Between his chemistry with Howard and the attraction that develops between Shawn and a girl he fails to sell the above mentioned Harry Potter books to (Zulary Henao), this feels organic and not pushed along by a forced narrative. As Harvey strings him along the underground fight scene, we meet a former rival of his/current professional fighter (Brian White: THE CABIN IN THE WOODS) and this slowly builds to them facing off in the underground circuit.
There is more to it than this, but I think what makes this worth a watch is its namesake. The fighting in FIGHTING is really dang good. At first I kept wondering when there was going to be a good fight. The first fight has Shawn getting beat down for the duration until he kind of finds his rage at the end and throws the dude up against a water fountain and knocks him out. The second fight ends shortly after it starts because someone in the crowd fires a gun and everyone scatters. Come on! This is called FIGHTING, man!
Then we get our first real fight and it’s a good one. He’s facing off against Dragon Lee (Cung Le: THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS, SAVAGE DOG) and the fight just completely transcends. There’s this beautiful fluidity to the fighting that tells its own story. This is what good hearted Shawn has locked within him. He, a brawler, can go toe to toe with a real martial artist and go the extra mile. He’s that good. And between the fight and the way Tatum sells it we believe in it.
We eventually get the fight with his old rival and it’s also a sight to behold and might be the film’s only real dark moment when it just gets particularly brutal. I don’t know if it’s on the same plain with the Cung Le fight but it’s up there.
Ultimately, even though I enjoy the good heart this movie has I think the fights overshadow that aspect and almost feel like they are from a different movie. I like the characters but the driving narrative behind these fights isn’t exactly there. But this is a pretty good one if not a little understated way to start this year off. Not a bad way to go.
Note: FIGHTING is currently available on Netflix streaming.
At The Drewvies 