For one of Hollywood’s most respected intellectuals, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer-director David Mamet sure loves to film pugilism. From Ronin to Spartan to TV’s The Unit and now Redbelt, Mamet has proved time and again that an action sequence doesn’t have to be a fast film stock, CGI cluster-fuck to be riveting. Moreover, he’s proven that, in the words of Departed screenwriter William Monahan, “there’s no reason why an action film can’t make a literature professor wet himself.”
Even in the tradition of Mamet’s violence-’n’-cleverness films, Redbelt is something of a curiosity. In its limited pre-release hype, Mamet has described the film as “a samurai story in the tradition of [Akira] Kurosawa.” This is curious, because the film tells the story of Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a down-on-his-luck Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor who falls in with some seedy Hollywood types, who then con him out of what little he had to begin with. Despite the seeming lack of samurais, Mamet’s description is also very accurate. When Terry is betrayed by everyone he cares about only to rise above by virtue of his tenacious adherence to an unwritten code of honour, when his prize student dies and he feels bound to care for the widow or when he throws himself headlong into an army in defense of an ideal, Mamet’s evocation of Kurosawa’s archetypal hero is flawless.
It’s tempting to say that Redbelt is a samurai film by way of a sports film, but this only describes it superficially. It’s a samurai film that uses its backdrop as a sports film to subvert the “samurai” genre and comment on its conventions. The most explicit example of this comes at the end, where — without giving too much away — the climactic battle is extremely satisfying on an emotional level, but when the final image is contemplated afterward, it’s revealed as a subtle question mark. In a modern context, is it possible that the honour-bound, Samurai lifestyle is as arbitrary and hollow as the materialistic one it opposes?
For all the film’s intelligence, it isn’t without its flaws. The final scene, for example, defies any kind of narrative logic, completely breaking down without its metaphor. Still, the only other film with this problem that immediately comes to mind is Taxi Driver, and there are already a million defences for that ending floating around. At other times, Terry’s dialogue strains believability, packed to bursting with sagacious koans and philosophies as it is. Like the film’s other flaws, this too is in service of its overarching samurai metaphor, and condemning Redbelt for such a small chink in an otherwise immaculate high concept would be incredibly short-sighted.
Then there are Redbelt’s action sequences. These are, to coin a phrase, totally fucking sweet. While all of the burly men beating on one another give the definite impression of practised skill, they’re never flashy or excessive. Though many scenes have Ejiofor embarrassing his assailants with one or two deft manoeuvres, the fights in which he’s matched with opponents of equal talent are brutal, desperate battles of will that still manage to impress with their choreography. Combined with Mamet’s brainy approach to the subject matter, Redbelt is sure to appeal to literature nerds, film snobs, overgrown testosterone-fuelled manboys and every possible combination of the three.
