'Redbelt' Movie Review

Ok, so I went to see this movie with a few of my students last night thinking it might be pretty cool since David Mamet, an award-winning writer and director that I like, wrote and directed it. I would never have expected that he was capable of writing such cliche-ridden crap.

This movie is one martial arts cliche after another with terrible lines like "I don't teach students to win, I teach them to prevail." The cliches were so stupid that I found myself laughing out loud more than I do for comedies. I'm not sure the other people in the audience got why I was laughing, but my students all shared a chuckle.

The movie's hero owns a self-defense focused school that is apparently a Brazilian Jiu-jitsu school. I'm sure I don't have to tell all the traditional Jiu-jitsu practitioners out there that BJJ is really unsuited for street defense because it goes to the ground so much. If you don't already know this, check out my post, "Why Grappling is More Effective in the Ring than in Reality." Then when you actually see the guy fight, he pretty much keeps it off the ground and uses stuff that is more similar to traditional Jiu-jitsu.

The whole premise behind the movie is pretty weak and it portrays the world of MMA in a highly unrealistic, very negative way, implying that some official fight organizations fix their fights. Oh and the ending is just mind-blowingly awful.

Anyway, I could go into more rants about this suck-ass movie, but really the bottom line is this: This movie wasted one hour and forty minutes of my life and I want it back! Stay away from it despite the fact that the critics seem to like it. They clearly know nothing about the world of martial arts.