Random DVD Round Up - FIGHTING

Far be it for to criticise a movie in which the not unattractive Channing Tatum spends time bare-knuckle boxing, but FIGHTING really is a complete waste of time. It plays as a pastiche of every boxing movie you've ever scene. Debut director, often-time writer Dito Montiel (A GUIDE TO RECOGNISING YOUR SAINTS) tries to give his movie an air of authenticity and street-smarts with the seventies score and slang and a portrayal of corruption and underground power. But he fouls it all up with his sub KARATE KID plotting and phoned-in performance from Tatum, Howard and pretty much everything else. Worst of all, for a movie called FIGHTING, the fight scenes are brief and unimaginatively filmed. For all its affectations of grittiness, this film is basically just a schlocky romance whose plot gives Channing Tatum a chance to take his shirt off. To that extent, I almost prefer the more straightforward macho bullshit of NEVER BACK DOWN.

FIGHTING was released in spring 2009 and is available on DVD.

A GUIDE TO RECOGNISING YOUR SAINTS - six reasonably interesting characters in search of a plot

This review is posted by guest reviewer Nik, who can usually be found here.

I just went to the Barbican Cinema website to look up the name of the film I am reviewing. That's not a good start my friends. A Guide to Recognising Your Saints is a film set on the tough, mean streets of New York where four boys, including our lead character Dito (played by Shia LaBeouf), have to live and survive - grow up and learn how to be men. But after all that's said, this film is really about Dito's personal voyage in managing his relationships with his friends, his girlfriend (Rosario Dawson), and ultimately his love-hate struggle with his father (Chaz Plaminteri). And isn't that the universal story?

Well, no, it's not the universal story unless you bother to inject a plot, which director Dito Montiel conspicuously fails to do - conspicuous given that the film is supposed to be autobiographical. 98 minutes I sat there, curtain went up, popcorn went down, that's all that fucking happened. Even sporadically good acting from the likes of Martin Compston for example (playing Mike, a young Scottish lad who befriends Dito) cannot save the movie - mainly due to the fact that the script is pretty patchy, and that nothing actually happens.

Worse, the characters aren't even all that entertaining. The main character Dito, in both young and old (Robert Downey Junior) forms, fails to inspire anything but ire from the audience, as he whines and angsts like a girl about his life - and consistently makes blonde decisions and comments. Furthermore, the cinematography, which the brochure handed to me as I entered the cinema informed me was "experimental", just jarred - and the little "artistic" touches (like each character introducing themselves to camera during the film) were insulting and facile.

I've panned this one, and rightly. There were few saving graces, the movie was boring, poorly scripted, up itself, and completely without merit either as art or entertainment. The best that can be said is that it was slightly better than Epic Movie, which has now replaced Analyse That as my baseline for shite. Save your money. Stay away.

A GUIDE TO RECOGNISING YOUR SAINTS played Venice and Sundance 2006 where it won the Best Director (Drama) and a Special Jury Prize for the Ensemble Cast. It was released in the US and Australia in 2006 and in Turkey in 2007. It opens in the UK today and in Greece next week. It is available on Region 1 DVD.