Usually I enjoy Mamet's films. They are plot twisty clever stories with entertaining tough guy dialog. For some reason this is not really top Mamet. He brings out his usual careful plotting but the film kind of telegraphs where it is going before we get to the end. Chiwetel Ejiofor is the owner and instructor of a martial arts academy. He's struggling with money issues trying to keep his school open. He gets involved with loan sharks and it all leads up in a big martial arts match at the end of the film.
I don't think you can find fault with the cast. Besides Ejiofor, Tim Allen, Ricky Jay, Alicia Braga, Emily Mortimer and Joe Mantegna give good performances. The fight scenes seem sort of decently staged but the emotion core of the film, a man struggling to keep his moral balance just doesn't seem to be completely convincing.
Well it's a Mamet film so if it's not exactly top tier for him, compared to a lot of other films it's certainly heads above just about every other martial arts film.
Written by Mamet of course, the running time is 100 minutes.
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