Kung-fu comeback

>>David Mamet is back in shape with
the martial-arts thriller Redbelt

by MALCOLM FRASER

It wasn’t looking good for David Mamet for a while there. His last film, Spartan, was a Val Kilmer action thriller with all that entails, and lately he’s been noted more for his belligerent opinions and lucrative Hollywood ghostwriting gigs than for any interesting work. It’s therefore a relief to report that Redbelt, his newest directorial effort, is a return to form.

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Mike Terry, a Jiu-jitsu instructor with more integrity than business sense, leaving his wife Sondra (Alice Braga) struggling to pay his gym’s bills. He gets caught up in two intersecting plotlines: a Hollywood actor (Tim Allen) hires him as a consultant after Ejiofor defends him in a bar fight, and a pill-popping lawyer (Emily Mortimer) ends up in his debt after accidentally firing a gun in the gym. This being Mamet, a complicated series of double-crosses ensue.

Mamet is undoubtedly treading familiar ground: the plot and themes, with a man unwittingly trapped in a web of conspiracy outside of his control, are notably similar to those of his crime thriller The Spanish Prisoner and his comedy State and Main. But a couple of factors elevate Redbelt above mere Mamet-by-numbers. First, the film shows a real attention to detail, and a genuine appreciation for the martial-arts world (Mamet wrote the script after studying martial arts for years).

Second and more importantly is the excellent cast. Ejiofor, who you may remember from Talk to Me or American Gangster, is clearly an actor with a lot of promise, here displaying a deep grasp of contained emotions. Allen shows the acting strength that’s been overlooked in his myriad questionable career decisions.

A stable of Mamet regulars—Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay and David Paymer—chew on the writer’s typically bizarre but perfect dialogue. And Mortimer and Braga perform perhaps a historical first: strong and credible women characters in a Mamet film.

If you’re not a fan, this won’t win you over; all the problematic Mamet factors are there—the credulity-straining complication of the plot, the fascination with macho speechifying, and the inexplicable belief that Rebecca Pidgeon can act. But if you’ve been on the fence about his recent work, Redbelt should bring you back into the fold.

Redbelt opens
this Friday, May 9

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