Movie starts with Tommy ( Tom Hardy ) sitting on the doorstep waiting for his father Paddy ( Nick Nolte ) and after a few tense moments we realize that this bad blood between parent and offspring. Paddy is an ex drunk with two sons that basically hate and resent him for the upbringing he gave them. Brendan ( Joel Edgerton ) is the other older son who is now married with a pretty wife and two young girls in a mid size home. Tommy has some demons that are not revealed til late in the movie and Brendan is dealing with an impending foreclosure. Paddy is just trying to survive this world. Brendan is a high school teacher til he is suspended for winning a parking lot MMA ( mixed marital arts ) tournament. Guess it sets a bad example to work for money any means necessary to support your family. There is an upcoming super tournament called "Sparta" that has a million dollar winner take all purse. Tommy sees it as a way to help someone from his past and Brendan sees it as a way to save his and family's financial situation. Tommy hires Paddy as his trainer and Brendan finds an old friend to help out. Tommy enters as an unknown commodity and Brendan as over the hill fighter which is referred as "feeder fish" for the real fighters. As the brothers fight their way through all fighters they reach the final to face off for the grand prize. Though they is still a lot of animosity between the brothers in the end leave the cage as one. No, I won't reveal who won the fight but they both won more than just money.
Rating : 3.75/5 - Though this movie resembles last year's great movie "The Fighter" as it has two brothers that are at odds with each other but rise up together in the end it doesn't deliver as much in the end and I think that is because the supporting actors were stronger in Fighter. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good movie and deserves a better box office than what it is getting. The first 45 minutes or so are at a slow pace while trying to get all the characters set up but once that happens the movie moves at a quick pace with a lot of emotion tugging with peaks and valleys amongst the family members. Nick Nolte dials it back yet stands out more than in recent years. A pleasant surprise. Tom Hardy is turning in some excellent roles lately and next year he will be in the new Batman flick so he stock is rising rapidly. If you can stand the brutal arena of MMA and take away those layers you will come across a story about people dealing with today's problems and trying to defeat them the right way with the world against them the whole way. One of the better films in the last couple of months.
2 comments:
I am glad you reveiwed this, I definitely want to see it. Usally mma type movies have no depth and bad acting, but this one looked like it might have something more to it, along the lines of The Fighter which by the way I loved, so I am glad to hear that the movie makers aspired to do something on that level.
What I heard was this movie was in production at the same time as the Fighter and since they were so similiar they postponed this one. I think you will enjoy this one.
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