new release – ¦ ¦- FIGHTING – ¦ ¦- 4/10 – ¦ ¦- review ONLINE TUE.19.MAY (apologies for delay)
"I've got the brains / You've got the looks / Let's make lots of money. / You've got the brawn, I've got the brains / Let's make lots of money."
Pet Shop Boys, Opportunities
The looks and brawn in Fighting are supplied by Hollywood's fast-rising beefcake starlet Channing Tatum as Shawn MacArthur, a genial bruiser from Alabama making his way in a big bad Manhattan that feels more 1978 than 2008. And the person with the "brains" who will help Shawn turn his pugilistic prowess into hard cash? Soft-spoken Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard), an opportunistic hustler who has connections with New York's underworld of gangsters, nightclubs and bare-knuckle boxing. He recognises Shawn's potential to excel in the latter field and provides the lad with a series of increasingly lucrative encounters in front of wealthy people who "like people who like to fight."
Of course, if you buy a ticket for a film called Fighting you're also one of those people who "like people who like to fight" – about whom the movie itself isn't exactly complimentary. Not that writer-director Dito Montiel is exactly off the moral hook himself: it's not too much of a stretch to see the ambiguous relationship that develops between Harvey and Shawn as an analogue of the connection between Montiel and his star Tatum.
The latter graduated from modelling and a series of undemanding pretty-boy roles to the fringes of stardom via his blazingly charismatic supporting turn in Montiel's autobiographical debut A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006) – based on his own memoir of growing up in mid-80s New York.* And so one can't really blame Montiel for taking a gamble on Tatum's prospects and putting him front-and-centre for this followup. Unfortunately for all concerned, however, Tatum proves rather less of a "sure thing" than Shawn MacArthur…
Stealing the show in a "tight ensemble" like Saints is one thing. Actually holding a picture together is quite another, and while Shawn is able to transcend his technical limitations via persistence and generous helpings of (plausibility-straining) luck, there's nowhere to hide for Tatum here. He's evidently a character-actor trapped in an action-hero's body, and while there will probably be some future vehicle where his talents will be able to shine, Fighting isn't it. His stumblebum charisma only gets him so far, and he's repeatedly overshadowed by his much more experienced co-star Howard's easy-drawling turn as the morally-dubious Harvey.
And while Tatum's romantic interest Zulay Henao (as the imaginatively-named "Zulay") doesn't exactly burn up the screen either, his scenes with the latter are notable for frequently being stolen by chatterbox veteran Altagracia Guzman as Zulay's elderly grandmother. Catherine Scorsese may no longer be with us, but it's hard not to think of her fleeting but crucial contributions to her son's Mean Streets and GoodFellas when watching – and indeed listening to – Guzman in full flow. These are memories which conjure comparisons that emphatically aren't to Montiel's favour, so clunkily inert is so much of his picture – whose key third-act development (Shawn's surprise at discovering that two of the key people in his life know each other) makes little sense and packs less dramatic impact.
It's always a pleasure to see Luis Guzman (no kin) on the big screen, his presence mainly serves to emphasis the generally sub-Carlito's-Way feel of the numerous nightclub sequences (partially redeemed by the amusingly over-the-top presence of Roger Guenveur Smith, with whom Howard, as noted by Variety's John Anderson, seems to be conducting a private C.Walken-impersonation battle.) Next up for Luis G, as it happens, is Tony Scott's remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, a project which will hopefully pay more effective homage to the cheap-and-cheerful mid-70s movies which Montiel rather desperately tries to evoke with his wall-to-wall throwback-classics soundtrack.
Though the old-school hits are easy on the ear, and veteran cinematographer Stefan Czapsky (20 years after he shot Last Exit To Brooklyn) finds a few intriguing angles on oft-filmed Manhattan-and-environs locations, there's a nagging corniness and phoniness to Fighting – a picture that just never really seems to start. It features numerous sequences that combine the ludicrous with the laughable - Montiel shoots the bouts almost as if they're dance-numbers (often with the audiences right on top of the participants, cockpit-style), each of them cut to thuddingly "appropriate" music. In an ideal world, Fighting should have been a kind of James Gray take on Tzameti – raw, gritty, stylish. Instead, Montiel and company soft-pedal the violence, sex and language in pursuit of the PG-13 rating that will allow all of Tatum's young admirers to get into the cinema, but effectively ties one hand behind the picture's back.
Neil Young
18/19th May, 2009
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director : Dito Montiel
country : USA
year : 2009 (copyright-dated 2008)
run-time : 105m (BBFC)
seen : 15th May, 2009
cinema : Empire cinema, Newcastle (press show)
format : 35mm
MVP : Altagracia Guzman
respected second opinion : John Anderson, Variety
*
In a tight ensemble, Tatum is the unexpected stand-out: as the swaggering – but, we soon realise, painfully insecure – Antonio (a much harder role to pull off that it may first appear) ex-model Tatum exudes some of the bruised street-boy charisma in former decades by the likes of Robert De Niro and Matt Dillon. A star-making performance in a film that finds new, fresh ways to negotiate seemingly-familiar coming-of-age turf.
Jigsaw Lounge, 19th February 2007