Five. That’s the number of fights in the movie that is, in fact, called Fighting. Shawn MacArther (Channing Tatum) went from selling rip-off copies of Harry Potter on the street to the top of New York City’s underground fighting circuit in five fights. He sucker punches a guy (1) half-accidentally knocks a guy out (2) is saved from a tap out by a guy in his crew (3) actually throws some punches and beats a guy up for once (4) and then fights against the top underground fighter in NYC. There’s not even a fight montage! Rocky, the king of all boxing movies, was built on the montage.
Rather than call this film Fighting, I would call it Undeveloped Plot and the Furious Fists of Frustration. Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard) is a con man with ties to gamblers who like to host bare knuckle fighting. Harvey sees promise in Shawn and inserts him into these fights. Shawn manages to defeat or dissuade his three opponents to earn the right to fight against Evan Hailey (Brian J. White), a high school rival who has been antagonizing him the whole time. And what would a Channing Tatum movie be without the requisite love story? Shawn sees Zulay Valez (Zulay Henao) one time (one time!) in a club and two weeks later he is using his winnings to help pay her rent. I’m sorry, but anybody who is that much of a pussy for a girl wouldn’t be able to beat up anybody.
The movie rushed through every scene and seemed more anxious to move on to the next act rather than establish the characters. A contrived love story was jammed down the viewers throat rather than explore the character’s histories. Each part of this movie where there was an opportunity to add depth to a character the movie avoided it as if it didn’t want to distract from the ridiculously predictable main plot. Which makes the end of the movie like a slap to the fleshy patch where your balls used to be, you know you should feel something but there’s no balls so you don’t care.
Howard was surprisingly impressive in his role as the street hustler, although he’s beginning to make a career of standing out amongst a cast of nobodies. However, this movie missed the mark on so many levels I don’t even think middle school girls will enjoy this movie. I mean, Tatum only takes his shirt off in one scene. In a formula movie like this, that’s practically worse than having no fighting in a movie called Fighting. Might as well call the movie Channing Tatum Wears A Shirt.
--Mark Collins
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