Fighting: Review By Rama's SCREEN

This movie is FIGHTING to gain some level of respect and for some of the parts, it’s a success but for the most, it’s mediocre, to say the very least. The fight scenes are hardcore enough to compensate for the… unnecessary romance and the cliche conflict that are trying too hard to make things a bit dramatic. If you watch this movie just for the fight, you won’t get disappointed, just keep in mind that it also comes with excess baggage.

Channing Tatum seriously needs a good acting coach. He’s got the same expression for any emotion and it’s bugging the hell out of me. My concern is that he probably doesn’t realize he needs help because he can always depend solely on his good looks to take him all the way. If he keeps this up, a model is what he’ll always be, not an actor. Having said that, I’m impressed with his diligence in getting the fight scenes right for the audience who are out for this type of blood. I think every illegal fight action movie out there today is just attempting to get as close as possible to David Fincher’s Fight Club. There’s no Tyler Durden in this one, but the toned-down brawl in FIGHTING is pretty fun to watch.

I understand how the story wants to remind you that New York is a tough town, that even if it’s a land of opportunity, no one’s just gonna hand it to you on a silver platter but writers Dito Montiel and Robert Munic play it half-hearted and too safe.

If they took out the cliche romantic story, FIGHTING would’ve been gotten more rating in my book.. but that’s not the only problem. There’s nothing I hate more than comedy that doesn’t work and FIGHTING has that element and more. There’ll be times when you know Terrence Howard just said what’s supposed to be joke or Channing Tatum said some wiseass lines but you just know that there’s nothing funny about neither. It’s nothing offensive, it’s just ain’t funny

I think Terrence Howard is a great actor, although I know some people who’d beg to differ but the way he creates his character for this movie seems a bit pushing it. He talks in this higher pitch voice than usual and comes off with a certain mannerism or lingo in the way he talks his speech but everything falls short of impressive. You’re startin’ to think if he’s about to have a stroke or some health condition.

Overall, FIGHTING gets an average, it could be more if it was just about the fighting and nothing else.