'Redbelt' is just same ol', same ol'
A martial-arts movie by David Mamet.
It sounds like a jarring combination at first, as if the two just don't go together — until you learn that Mamet himself is a purple belt in jiujitsu. Clearly, this is a subject that's dear to his heart.
Then you realize while watching "Redbelt" that many tenets of the sport — the ideas of control, manipulation and one-upmanship — jibe perfectly with themes the playwright, director and screenwriter has explored for decades in some of his best-known works, such as the plays "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Speed-the-Plow."
And so "Redbelt" makes sense in its own weird way: a mix of sports-flick cliches and Mamet's patented rat-a-tat writing. It's "Rocky," it's "The Karate Kid" — only with more stylized, rhythmic dialogue.
Several Mamet regulars show up (Ricky Jay, Joe Mantegna, David Paymer and Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon), which does put us in somewhat comfortable territory. But it's Chiwetel Ejiofor ("Dirty Pretty Things"), the film's star, who commands our attention. As the unflappably moral, placid jiujitsu instructor Mike Terry, Ejiofor can be both attractive and warm, fierce and intimidating.
It goes without saying in Mamet Land that none of these people can be trusted.
But Mike truly practices what he preaches, handling every obstacle and challenge that thrusts itself into his path with the same calm he urges his students to achieve.
"Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. You know the escape," he'll repeat when someone looks particularly defeated during his class. Here's a bit of advice that he takes, which comes from his wife, Sondra, and gets him further into trouble: "Let the wheel come around."
Mike and his wife, Sondra, are already struggling to maintain their West Los Angeles studio at a time when the more violent Ultimate Fighting and mixed martial arts are in vogue. A shattered front window, the result of an accidental gunshot, puts them further into debt. Then a chance encounter at a bar with Allen's Chet Frank seems to turn their financial troubles around.
In no time, Mike is visiting Chet on the set and talking about receiving a producing credit, and Sondra, a fabric designer, is working with Chet's wife, Zena (Pidgeon), on a clothing line. (Allen is surprisingly good in an uncharacteristically cynical, haggard role.)
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