Let’s face it, there will probably never be a truly great “MMA” movie. Quote unquote “movie-going audiences” (and therefore, the studios that fund these films) don’t give two shits about accurately representing the sport, nor do they care to explore any aspect of MMA other than the fighting itself. To these people, MMA is a spectacle in need of exploiting: take your Karate Kid premise, switch out Ralph Macchio for a couple greased up Abercrombie models, and throw in as many Superman punches as humanly possible. Cut. Print. Never Back Down.
Whether its because the filmmakers involved in these movies simply lack any understanding of what mixed martial arts actually is, or because the sport has a tendency to attract the type of dude-bro, mouth-breathing clods that helped make Transformers 4 a success, MMA in film is all but destined to a life of insultingly misrepresentative, focus-grouped tripe like Here Comes the Boom and Hector Echavarria straight-to-DVDs starring actual mixed martial artists. I honestly don’t know which is worse.
And then, there’s Brutal, an upcoming MMA movie that appears to be equal parts Shutter Island and a wet fart (Sharter Island?). If the trailer you’re about to witness is any indication, Brutal should set MMA back 15 years at the minimum.
Let’s face it, there will probably never be a truly great “MMA” movie. Quote unquote “movie-going audiences” (and therefore, the studios that fund these films) don’t give two shits about accurately representing the sport, nor do they care to explore any aspect of MMA other than the fighting itself. To these people, MMA is a spectacle in need of exploiting: take your Karate Kid premise, switch out Ralph Macchio for a couple greased up Abercrombie models, and throw in as many Superman punches as humanly possible. Cut. Print. Never Back Down.
Whether its because the filmmakers involved in these movies simply lack any understanding of what mixed martial arts actually is, or because the sport has a tendency to attract the type of dude-bro, mouth-breathing clods that helped make Transformers 4 a success, MMA in film is all but destined to a life of insultingly misrepresentative, focus-grouped tripe like Here Comes the Boom and Hector Echavarria straight-to-DVDs starring actual mixed martial artists. I honestly don’t know which is worse.
And then, there’s Brutal, an upcoming MMA movie that appears to be equal parts Shutter Island and a wet fart (Sharter Island?). If the trailer you’re about to witness is any indication, Brutal should set MMA back 15 years at the minimum.
Brutal‘s IMDB synopsis attempts to shed some light on whatever the f*ck it is that you just witnessed. It fails miserably:
Abducted without explanation, two men are forced into a daily steel cage brawl testing their will to live.
Ah, so they half ripped off the plot of Oldboy and referred to a mixed martial arts fight as a “steel cage brawl” in one sentence. Fantastic.
Based off the trailer alone, I’m going to make the wild assumption that no one involved in Brutal has ever, ever seen an MMA fight to completion. Either that, or this is a film backed by the Culinary Union with the goal of convincing people that the average MMA fight features WWE-style clotheslines, eye-gouging, and submissions that literally snap peoples bones through their skin. (You shut your mouth about that Uriah Hall injury.)
Just an absolute piece of shit from top to bottom Brutal is primed to be, although personally, the thing I found most offensive about this trailer was how overcooked the main dude’s steak was, as well as the fact that he tried to dip said steak in its own au jus where there was clearly none to do so. Nice prop work, Zakarian! The Jon Jones of reality show cooking competitions you are not.
I guess we should take solace in the fact that no more than 15 people will ever see this movie, but you can guaran-damn-tee that a Fight Flicksreview of Brutal will hit CP the day it is released.
There’s a moment early on in Fight Life in which Jake Shields laments (or comes as close to it as he can while retaining his trademark roboticness) the negative effects his career has had on his personal life.
“Everyone’s always like, ‘What are your hobbies?’ and unfortunately, I don’t really have any hobbies because MMA is my hobby, my job, my career. My whole life revolves around it at this point, you know?”
It’s a statement that both serves as the mission statement of the aptly named Fight Life and one that would perhaps support the idea that MMA fighters are not the most intriguing subjects around which to base a documentary. Fighters fight for their families, or to overcome demons from their past, or simply because it’s all they know. While these may be considered fresh revelations to the most casual of MMA fans, it’s nothing that a seasoned fan of the sport hasn’t been treated to a zillion times over in the lead-up to a UFC event or boxing match. As a result, Fight Life winds up feeling less like an intimate look into the personal lives of guys like Shields and Beerbohm and more like an 80-minute Countdown episode.
Chronicling the lives of Jake Shields and Lyle Beerbohm (among others) in the lead-up to their 2009 fights with Robbie Lawler and Duane Ludwig, respectively, the documentary from James Z. Feng is an equally inspiring and underwhelming look at the daily struggles and triumphs of the professional mixed martial artist. Part of the blame for the film’s shortcomings can be placed on its subjects — or at least Shields, who has never been a charismatic individual despite his accomplishments. But really, the biggest issue facing the film is its outdated perspective. MMA has undergone several huge changes in the time between when Fight Life was shot and its release, and neither Shields nor Beerbohm have exactly become the dominant forces that the documentary attempts to set them up as.
That’s not to say that Fight Life is absent of any compelling moments, however…
There’s a moment early on in Fight Life in which Jake Shields laments (or comes as close to it as he can while retaining his trademark roboticness) the negative effects his career has had on his personal life.
“Everyone’s always like, ‘What are your hobbies?’ and unfortunately, I don’t really have any hobbies because MMA is my hobby, my job, my career. My whole life revolves around it at this point, you know?”
It’s a statement that both serves as the mission statement of the aptly named Fight Life and one that would perhaps support the idea that MMA fighters are not the most intriguing subjects around which to base a documentary. Fighters fight for their families, or to overcome demons from their past, or simply because it’s all they know. While these may be considered fresh revelations to the most casual of MMA fans, it’s nothing that a seasoned fan of the sport hasn’t been treated to a zillion times over in the lead-up to a UFC event or boxing match. As a result, Fight Life winds up feeling less like an intimate look into the personal lives of guys like Shields and Beerbohm and more like an 80-minute Countdown episode.
Chronicling the lives of Jake Shields and Lyle Beerbohm (among others) in the lead-up to their 2009 fights with Robbie Lawler and Duane Ludwig, respectively, the documentary from James Z. Feng is an equally inspiring and underwhelming look at the daily struggles and triumphs of the professional mixed martial artist. Part of the blame for the film’s shortcomings can be placed on its subjects — or at least Shields, who has never been a charismatic individual despite his accomplishments. But really, the biggest issue facing the film is its outdated perspective. MMA has undergone several huge changes in the time between when Fight Life was shot and its release, and neither Shields nor Beerbohm have exactly become the dominant forces that the documentary attempts to set them up as.
That’s not to say that Fight Life is absent of any compelling moments, however. Featuring interviews with everyone from veteran referee Big John McCarthy to NFL Hall of Famer-turned MMA fighter Herschel Walker, the documentary explores not only the mentality it takes for one to become a top-level MMA fighter, but the daily struggles of maintaining such excellence while balancing whatever semblance of a social life fighters are privy to. It also takes a look at the fire through which such a mentality is often forged, especially so in the case of Lyle “Fancy Pants” Beerbohm.
Learning how Beerbohm, a former meth addict, discovered his passion for mixed martial arts while watching The Ultimate Fighter from behind bars is a humanizing moment that many fighters (or at least, more than us MMA fans would care to admit to) could likely identify with. The same goes for the moments devoted to Beerbohm’s adorable (and slightly resentful) parents, who after serving as enablers to their son’s addiction for years, have rallied behind his newfound career and the more positive outlook on life it has given him. His mother even offers some insight into how Beerbohm came to be known as “Fancy Pants” thanks to a collection of old fabrics and her crack sewing skills.
Fight Life similarly resonates when (briefly) discussing the relationship between Shields and his daughter, who he raised on his own while working full time, training, and taking classes in college. At the time the documentary was being shot, we learn that Shield’s daughter was following in her father’s footsteps by enrolling in Jiu-Jitsu classes. She also packs an armbar capable of tapping out her old man despite being a white belt, which is pretty badass if you ask me.
In any case, it’s those moments between fighter and family that I’d prefer to see documentaries like Fight Life explore more of. Fighters on Jake Shields’ level are essentially PR robots that have been groomed into spitting out the same cliche responses for years now, which makes the average interview with them anything but interesting. I know that every MMA fighter wants to be a champion. I know that every MMA fighter wants to be “the best.” You want to offer some *real* perspective into what the life of a fighter is like? Talk to their families. Talk to their (non-fighting) friends. Talk to anyone but the fighters themselves, then use what you’ve learned to get the fighters to truly open up. Asking a fighter to describe their life with complete objectivity and honesty is like basing your opinion of someone solely on their Match.com profile.
Take the matter-of-factly way in which Shields’ daughter is introduced and just as quickly never discussed again, for instance. We learn that she is taking BJJ classes, and that Jake makes as much time for her when he can, but why not ask his daughter about her father’s busy lifestyle and the effect it has on their relationship? Why not ask Jake about the difficulty of being a single parent (which is never even touched on) or his lifelong vegetarianism? MMA fighters, like any of us, can be compelling figures if you ask the right questions, or really, any based around something other than their jobs.
If I am sounding critical of Fight Life, it’s only because the documentary presents several intriguing opportunities to cash in on these revealing moments before ultimately choosing to focus on the training and fights themselves. I can’t blame Feng for doing so, as a documentary about MMA fighters absent of fights would likely lead to riots in the streets from some of the sport’s more boisterous fans. Then again, The Smashing Machineopts for such an approach and is considered one of the, if not the greatest MMA documentary of them all (especially among the CagePotato staff).
But maybe that’s not the documentary that Fight Life is trying to be. Its thesis is, after all, that the life of a fighter is fighting, fighting, fighting, and also training. And that’s all well and good, but for the hardcore MMA fan perhaps hoping to get a little more perspective into the hows and whys of guys like Shields, Fight Life will only partially satisfy. The documentary would, conversely, serve as an excellent introduction to casual fans of the sport or even naysayers who still feel that MMA fighters are nothing more than blood-hungry savages seeking a cathartic release in the most legal fashion possible. What? You didn’t think those people simply went away, did you?
(“Easy senorita, ‘juicy’ is a term of endearment in these parts.”)
Fight Flicks is a new recurring column on CagePotato that focuses on overlooked, underrated, or just plain awesome fight-centric films. This week, we’re reviewing Gina Carano’s ziplining-gone-wrong revenge flick, In the Blood.
That rumors of Gina Carano‘s potential MMA return continue todominate headlines despite her five year absence from the sport says a lot about the level of popularity she ascended to while fighting for Strikeforce, a since-deceased fight promotion that many of her current fans might not know ever existed. Carano’s recent turns in Haywireand Fast & Furious 6have not only exposed her to an entirely new legion of fans, thusly fueling their/our desire to see her compete again, but have paved the way for tough, attractive female fighters like her (Ronda Rousey, for instance) to follow in her footsteps.
Somewhere between Haywire and her upcoming all-women Expendables riff, however, came In the Blood, a so-called “Female Taken set in the Caribbean” that hit movie stands on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital HD yesterday.
Directed by John Stockwell — who really, reallyseems to enjoy placing his movies on or around tropical islands — and co-starring Cam Gigandet, Luiz Guzman, and the incomparable Danny Trejo, In the Blood aka “Gina Carano Ain’t Got Time to Bleed” takes your run-of-the-mill revenge flick and attempts to inject new life into it by making the protagonist…a woman (*record scratch*). GIF-tacular hijinks ensue, but you already knew that.
Our full review is after the jump.
(“Easy senorita, ‘juicy’ is a term of endearment in these parts.”)
Fight Flicks is a new recurring column on CagePotato that focuses on overlooked, underrated, or just plain awesome fight-centric films. This week, we’re reviewing Gina Carano’s ziplining-gone-wrong revenge flick, In the Blood.
That rumors of Gina Carano‘s potential MMA return continue todominate headlines despite her five year absence from the sport says a lot about the level of popularity she ascended to while fighting for Strikeforce, a since-deceased fight promotion that many of her current fans might not know ever existed. Carano’s recent turns in Haywireand Fast & Furious 6have not only exposed her to an entirely new legion of fans, thusly fueling their/our desire to see her compete again, but have paved the way for tough, attractive female fighters like her (Ronda Rousey, for instance) to follow in her footsteps.
Somewhere between Haywire and her upcoming all-women Expendables riff, however, came In the Blood, a so-called “Female Taken set in the Caribbean” that hit movie stands on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital HD yesterday.
Directed by John Stockwell — who really, reallyseems to enjoy placing his movies on or around tropical islands – and co-starring Cam Gigandet, Luiz Guzman, and the incomparable Danny Trejo, In the Blood aka “Gina Carano Ain’t Got Time to Bleed” takes your run-of-the-mill revenge flick and attempts to inject new life into it by making the protagonist…a woman (*record scratch*). GIF-tacular hijinks ensue, but you already knew that.
In the Blood opens with Carano’s Ava informing us via monologue that her father was a baaaad man who taught her all the stuff (also, things) necessary to be an emotionless killing machine growing up. We’re not told why Ava’s dad was such a hardened survivalist, but we do know that when he is gunned down before her, 15-year-old Ava who looks nothing like Ava proceeds to hand out buckshot like flavored Tootsie rolls at a 4th of July parade to the men who did it.
Cut to her wedding day, where Ava’s husband, Derek (Gigandet), is receiving the worst pump-up speech ever from his dickhead father, Treach Williams. You see, Derek and Ava met in rehab or something, and all Derek’s family knows about her is that she comes from a shady past. Therefore, she’s a golddigger who aint messing with no broke…well, you get the idea. But before Daddy Treach can even force his son to sign a prenup, the two jet off for a Caribbean honeymoon that includes lots of canoodling, jetskiing, and thank Christ, lip-biting.
Ava can barely finish cleaning the hot, steamy sex that the director somehow forgot to include in this film off her before she is approached by Caribbean Justin from American Idol, who whisks the newlywed couple away to a nightclub where they are almost immediately accosted by Danny Trejo, aka Big Biz. Ava goes agro on some bitches while her weakling husband watches in the background, like so:
Easily the biggest issue with this scene (besides the bottle throw, the flying armbar, or the glass smash), was the lack of attention paid to Carano’s world-renowned dancing abilities in the moments prior, which were all but lost amidst the neon lights and frantic editing pace.
The next day, Ava and Derek still trust Caribbean Justin enough to join him for a ziplining adventure, which quickly devolves into an episode of “I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining” when Derek plummets from the aptly-named “Widowmaker.” Paramedics soon arrive, and through a series of plot contrivances, Derek vanishes without a trace. A standoff with crooked cops (including the consistently excellent Luiz Guzman as the police chief) ensues before Ava is forced to hunt down every last hapa on the island to find the love of her life, who it bears repeating is a frail girly-man played by Cam Gigandet.
Truthfully, In the Blood occupies a weird space in the action-thriller genre. While it’s drawn several aforementioned comparisons to Taken, it lacks both the intensity and the direction to satisfy fans hoping for something along those lines, while being far too dumb to be enjoyed by anyone seeking an even mildly inventive, conspiracy-type thriller. The film’s plot developments are delivered in such a nonchalant, on-the-fly manner that it’s hard to really invest anything in what’s being said or the people saying it, and the film’s Bourne-esque editing often obscures more of the action sequences than it shows. To make a bad pun, In the Blood lacks “Conviction,” especially so in the case of Carano’s often monotone line delivery.
That’s not to say that there’s nothing to like in In the Blood. Action movie fans looking for a mindless escape punctuated by a few decent fight scenes will surely appreciate watching Carano kill a man with a spoon, torture another with a pen, and thrust a shovel through a cop’s face like a goddamn episode of The Walking Dead. MMA fans looking to see Carano throw leg kicks, flying armbars, and superman punches (which seem to be the only “MMA moves” that Hollywood has become aware of) will be equally satisfied. Carano also looks great in the movie, as she’s wont to do, and I already mentioned the fact that she does the lip-bite thing, which by itself raises my rating of In the Blood one and a half thumbs plus a gold star.
For a movie that serves little other purpose than showcasing Carano’s already documented fighting skills and let’s say developing acting abilities, In the Blood is able to deliver for the most part, all the way up to its abrupt and utterly crazypants ending. While it lacks the punch (no pun intended) to be held in the same light as Taken or even Taken 2, it’s certainly not the worst action flick you’ll come across, and did I mention that this happens?
Fight Flicks is a new recurring column on CagePotato that focuses on overlooked, underrated, or just plain awesome fight-centric films currently available on Youtube. For our second installment, we focus on the Jackie Chan classic, Rumble in the Bronx.
There’s a saying where I come from, “The universe provides.” It’s rather self-explanatory, but basically, “The universe provides” posits that the keys to solving any problem, no matter how trivial, can be found in the world around us with the help of a little inventive thinking. It’s a pseudo-philosophical understanding of “Life Hacks” among us self-reliant, redneck MacGyver types, if you will.
In any case, it’s a philosophy that was clearly not lost on Jackie Chan, who burst into the mainstream with his environment-as-a-weapon style of martial arts in the 1995 fight flick classic, Rumble in the Bronx. Although Chan had already gained notoriety in his native Hong Kong during the 70’s and 80’s with such movies as Drunken Master, Police Story, and Armour of God, it wasn’t until Rumble in the Bronx that Chan truly introduced audiences to his hyper-energetic style of fighting that was equal parts Chinese martial arts, parkour, and slapstick humor.
I’ve already spoke at length about my love of Rumble in the Bronx. From the insanely intricate fight choreography/stunts right down to the cartoonish acting and horrendous dubbing (and of course, Francoise Yip), I would defy you to name a more entertaining flick from Chan’s historic career (LALALALA CAN’T HEAR YOU DRUNKEN MASTER 2!!). No, Rumble in the Bronx features a hovercraft fight, a no-net, building-to-building jump, and the most astounding 4-minute “man vs. an army” sequence ever committed to film, and therefore stands above them all.
Fight Flicks is a new recurring column on CagePotato that focuses on overlooked, underrated, or just plain awesome fight-centric films currently available on Youtube. For our second installment, we focus on the Jackie Chan classic, Rumble in the Bronx.
There’s a saying where I come from, “The universe provides.” It’s rather self-explanatory, but basically, “The universe provides” posits that the keys to solving any problem, no matter how trivial, can be found in the world around us with the help of a little inventive thinking. It’s a pseudo-philosophical understanding of “Life Hacks“ among us self-reliant, redneck MacGyver types, if you will.
In any case, it’s a philosophy that was clearly not lost on Jackie Chan, who burst into the mainstream with his environment-as-a-weapon style of martial arts in the 1995 fight flick classic, Rumble in the Bronx. Although Chan had already gained notoriety in his native Hong Kong during the 70′s and 80′s with such movies as Drunken Master, Police Story, and Armour of God, it wasn’t until Rumble in the Bronx that Chan truly introduced audiences to his hyper-energetic style of fighting that was equal parts Chinese martial arts, parkour, and slapstick humor.
I’ve already spoke at length about my love of Rumble in the Bronx. From the insanely intricate fight choreography/stunts right down to the cartoonish acting and horrendous dubbing (and of course, Francoise Yip), I would defy you to name a more entertaining flick from Chan’s historic career (LALALALA CAN’T HEAR YOU DRUNKEN MASTER 2!!). No, Rumble in the Bronx features a hovercraft fight, a no-net, building-to-building jump, and the most astounding 4-minute “man vs. an army” sequence ever committed to film, and therefore stands above them all.
That Chan was willing to sacrifice life and limb to achieve his vision(s) has been discussed ad nauseum, but perhaps one of the lesser talked about aspects of Chan’s career was his ability to inject Three Stooges-esque humor into something as inherently violent as a fight. Filmdrunk’s Vince Mancini put it best when he said that ”Jackie Chan is the Buster Keaton of martial arts movies.” The moment during the aforementioned “man vs. army” fight in which Chan attempts to wrestle/kick/destroy by any means possible several glass bottles before an assailant can hit him with one, culminating in an inexplicable “DONG!” sound effect? Cinematic gold.
OK, I’ll stop gushing over a movie that you’re probably sick of hearing me gush over and just hit you with a few facts about Rumble in the Bronx (taken from the film’s IMDB and Wikipedia pages):
-Filming in Vancouver, Canada on October 6, 1994, Jackie Chan broke his right ankle while attempting the scene where he jumps onto the hovercraft. Françoise Yip also broke her leg while filming the scene where she rides a motorbike across the tops of parked cars.
-The warehouse/man vs. army fight scene took twenty days to film, with Jackie Chan having to teach the local stunt players to fight “Hong Kong style.”
-In Hong Kong, Rumble in the Bronx broke the box office record, earning HK $56,911,136, making it the biggest film in Hong Kong at that time. In America, the film opened on 1,736 screens and was number one at the box office in its opening weekend, grossing US $9,858,380 ($5,678 per screen). It finished its North American run with US $32,392,047.
-Said Roger Ebert of the film: “Any attempt to defend this movie on rational grounds is futile. Don’t tell me about the plot and the dialogue. Don’t dwell on the acting. The whole point is Jackie Chan – and, like Astaire and Rogers, he does what he does better than anybody. There is a physical confidence, a grace, an elegance to the way he moves. There is humor to the choreography of the fights (which are never too gruesome). He’s having fun. If we allow ourselves to get in the right frame of mind, so are we.”
God damn do I love this movie. I’ll see you all in about two hours.
