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Psychedelic Sees REDBELT!
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
Mamet’s always sort of hit-or-miss for me when he’s working as a director, so I’m a little surprised by how dead-center REDBELT hit me. I think it’s great, and I’ll be reviewing it very soon.
Today, though, we’ve got regular spy Psychedelic with his take on it:
Hey Harry and Martial Artists,
The Acid was bad. The dead hung off lamp posts on Hollywood Boulevard. Mediocre comic artists threw themselves in front of cabs. Smurfs dripped from starlets’ nipples. Posers sucked rectums at the pre-reception of the sneak screening of David Mamet’s Redbelt at the Egyptian Theatre.
Mamet returns with his take on the martial arts genre. I have great admiration for Mamet and look forward to his new works. For me, his dialogue sets a very high quality standard. If most movies tried to have dialogue as good as Mamet’s we’d be better off.
Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) runs a Jiu-Jitsu school so well respected that he trains many police officers. Terry does not compete in the ring despite many promoters desire for him to fight publicly. Terry doesn’t see competition as honorable to his code despite mounting financial troubles.
A movie star in a bar gets into a fight and Terry happens to be there to save his ass. The movie star (Tim Allen) invites him to the set of his Iraq war movie. Terry, who’s also former military, brings such insight to fight scenes that the star makes him a producer. What follows is an elaborate con to get Terry in the ring. It’s a martial arts flick. So you know he’ll get in the ring eventually which makes the con not compelling.
As usual Mamet’s stylized dialogue is on display. His dialogue technique consists of repetition and bouncing back one word in different verbal clothing. A home made example:
“Did he do the spike?”
“The spike was done.”
“Was it smooth?”
“There were difficulties.”
“What difficulties?”
“The broad moved the spike.”
“She moved the spike?”
“Yeah, the spike was moved. But I got it done.”
“We’ll have to spike the broad.”
As fun as the technique is, his dialogue has become about reflecting his technique rather than reflecting life around him. In Glengarry Glen Ross, Mamet wrote of a real boiler room sales office he worked in. His recent films are about putting the Mamet spin on movie genres. Spartan: the political thriller. Redbelt: martial arts. If he keeps going this route he could become a parody of himself.
There are two conflicting elements in Redbelt. On one hand Mamet’s doing a scheme/con movie that’s his bread and butter. On the other he’s doing a martial arts flick with realism and intelligence atypical of the genre. There are so many dangling plot loose ends to the con story that it seems Mamet just didn’t care. One could argue he’s deliberately oblique to make the audience fill in the gaps, but there are enough loose ends to fill four movies. Mamet didn’t care. Why should I? It feels like scenes are missing and another month in the editing room could make the plot clearer. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the courage or objective insight to chuck a con plot completely and do a straight up action movie; his Kill Bill if you will.
The action scenes are cut with a staccato rhythm similar to his dialogue. They’re fun. Real fighters and actors were mixed to bring authenticity. It works and it could have made for something much better.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, playing Mike Terry, holds the movie together with a charismatic lead performance. Without him the film would fall apart into a shambles. Between this and his acclaimed work in Talk To Me, Ejiofor is on a hot streak right now. Mike Terry is a unique character in Mamet’s work because he’s a central protagonist who’s straight up, decent, and moral. Most of Mamet’s leads are hustlers, thieves, or shady business men. It’s a refreshing change. Many Mamet stock company actors appear. Ricky Jay, David Paymer, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Joe Mantegna are among them.
Overall I enjoyed Redbelt but it fades fast when leaving the theatre. It’s too bad since the central character and underlying story of getting this badass fighter into the ring are good. Maybe Mamet will drop the con pretensions for his next genre effort.
Neon peacocks gouged out eyes. Rabid dildos penetrated every woman exiting the theatre. I fucked the Egyptian cartoons in the wall.
-Psychedelic
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the Trailers are very good,lets wait for Mori's review....
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see what the reviewer means about his unique style of dialogue tugging you out of the movie a bit, though. I really liked The Spanish Prisoner, Spartan, State and Main, Ronin and the Edge. (The Heist, not so much.) Good review, though the corny "psychedelic" bookends were a little annoying. You don't need a gimmick, Psychedelic. You're better than that.
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Seriously, I don't think these guys work on the weekend. I'm in a catch-22 if I want to keep my job I won't dick around with all these post, but if I want to stay hip-to-it I don't want to start posting afterwork. Whats the working man to do? Hopefully after this people will realize that Chiwetel Ejiofor is the actor that they think Don Cheadle is and will start getting all his roles. Because Cheadle sucks donkey balls, and Chiwetel Ejiofor is a Magna Cum Laude graduate from the school of Denzel. What does Timothy Allen do in this movie? That would be awesome if the Tool Man did Kung Fu.
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Wow David Mamet sounds like he's got a hot property coming up next. Thats one of the worst titles for a movie I've heard in a long time. Even worse then The Karate Dog.
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Still, looking forward to this
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Apr 14, 2008 7:48:47 AM CDT
Oh and by the way. "Heist" was magnificent. "Spartan" was not
by proman1984
Still a good movie but not quite up to par.
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Loved it. Intelligent, relentless and pretty damn exciting. Val Kilmer is hardcore, man. I'll watch anything that Mamet's involved in. State and Main is a great movie about making movies. P.S. I like Don Cheadle. Especially in Boogie Nights and Traffic.
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Chiwetel Ejiofor + David Mamet + Jiu-Jitsu = NO REVIEW NESCESSARY
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...sheep count HIM.
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RedBelt looks pretty weak to me. Me thinks Mamet's getting a little TOO enamored of tough guys. (the Unit) and his ju-jitsu classes RedBelt)
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is for closers.
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is the imitators. He's spawned a whole bunch of writers who seem to think they can do what he does and who are too lazy to come up with their own style. I'll see anything Chiwetel Ejiofor does so I'm there for this.
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Was that it got lost in the crowd After the Score, and both had similar themes. I don't know if I sat all the way through the Score though.
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Seriously now, Heist was intense, genuinly interesting and the final shootout scene was damn really fucking intense and oldschool. Loved it.
As for Spartan, I found it suprisingly linear.
There were, of course, a lot of thing I liked about it, but I also found it incredibly banal. The ending partiluarly dissapointed, in a much the same way as it did in his other fantatic film - Spanish Prisoner.
Not a touch on his absolute masterpiece - Glengarry GlenRoss. -
go rent Edmond. That flick is nuts.
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because Spartan was more original, and it didn't have people pulling endless trump cards out of endless asses. By about the 3rd turnaround-double-cross-reversal toward the end, i just couldn't take it anymore and told the movie to fuck itself.
Spartan had intense action, good acting, plot, and pretty realistic tactics and gunplay (save for that scene where Val racks the shotgun an extra time or two).
I agree Spartan wasn't the best Mamet flick, but it was way better than Heist, which was just derivative of his other con-man movies. It has a clever heist, but everyone's overacting, the dialogue is especially Mamet-y and stilted, and a lot of characters you don't care about. -
I found Heist to be disapointing. It was fairly servicable heist pic with your standard cross/double cross/triple cross plot. Not bad, but definately workman-like compared to what Mamet is capable of. Spartan however, was far more enjoyable to me. I think the trick to enjoying Spartan is to realize, as its title clearly suggests, that it is a character piece. The main character is a sociopathic amoral killer who was the Mr. Wolf for Uncle Sam. This was a man who had long since crossed all personal lines and was willing to do anything that needed to be done for the good of his country. He followed orders unquestioningly. Somewhere along the way he had lost his soul. The joy of watching Spartan is watching him slowly regain his humanity, and finally, witnessing his choice to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect the girl--who to me represented goodness itself, in a metaphorical sense.
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I guess I see Spartan as a Mamet version of Man on Fire, which I also enjoyed immensely.
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It seems to me, that in keeping with the rules established within the film's universe, that as soon as he decided to betray his master--the good of the US government, he was doomed to be destroyed. The character knew this when he chose to serve his new master--the greater good. There's a definate fatalism to his attitude once he makes his choice to go get the girl. This may have even happened in an earlier draft. However, the script allowed him to live. Now, this is not the type of character to fade into nothingness. I like to imagine him running around the world doing A-team-like missions for those who don't have the power to fight for themselves. I'd love to see Mamet make this into a francise. Not that it will ever happen...
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Spartan wasn't even in the same league. When you really start thinking about the plot you will find that it's pretty ridicolous actually. Oh well, to each his own.
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