Phillip V. Caruso/Rogue PicturesReview in a Hurry: Already beloved by female fans of Step Up, Channing Tatum makes a play for the male audience by playing a street brawler in the simply named Fighting. He's believably tough and appealing, but the long stretches of nothing between the fights make this a chore to sit through—without a fast-forward button.
The Bigger Picture: Alabama runaway Shawn MacArthur (Tatum) is an occasionally homeless hustler (albeit the most handsome and fittest one you've ever seen) who sells bootleg novels on the streets of Brooklyn (sample title: Harry Potter and the Hippopotamus).
But when a Chicago hustler named Harvey (Terrence Howard) tests his limits, Shawn erupts with a channeled fury that seems unstoppable. Harvey immediately proposes that they go into business, making big money in the secret world of illegal street fights.
Writer-director Dito Montiel had a tough upbringing on the streets of New York—and even got Robert Downey Jr. to play him in the semi-autobiographical A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints—but street cred alone does not a movie auteur make.
Montiel may know all about the rough side of city life, but when it comes to telling a compelling screen story about it, he's a little lost. While the fight sequences are effective nail-biters, Howard seems to have been instructed to adopt a fake voice that makes him sound both lobotomized and hung over, while the other thugs talk in faux-Mamet patois that's irritating as hell. News flash—David Mamet already did a street-fighting movie. It was called Redbelt, and it was way better than Fighting.
Montiel seems to be aiming for a mix of drama and combat akin to that in the original Rocky, but despite his star's copious charms—Tatum here is reminiscent of a younger John Cena, and yes, that's a good thing—the film is a mess. Shooting as many takes out of focus as he does, and cutting away to outside-the-window shots and back for no reason, well, that doesn't come off as artsy, but incompetent. And considering the amount of screen time allotted to emoting versus action, the movie could easily be renamed Talking.
With that said, the fights are awesome. If you can rent this cheaply some day and just stick to those parts, you'll have fun.
The 180—a Second Opinion: The central conceit, that so many small corner liquor/grocery stores in New York stay in business by holding illegal fights in the back room, is really a good premise. If a sequel is ever greenlighted, that aspect should be played up more.