“There is nothing from which you cannot escape,” says the martial arts instructor protagonist as his chief principle in David Mamet’s Redbelt. But you know that since he is the hero of a David Mamet film, he will be put through the gauntlet of con games and deceptions and have that very principle severely tested beyond the realm of physical defense. Few can spin out the con games better and this one provides another compelling one up until a finale that unfortunately forgets that it should remain a shell game.
The hero is Mike Terry, who, as played by the always terrific Chiwetel Ejiofor, has distant echoes of the Forest Whitaker character in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Like that other character, he is a man who fiercely lives by his own values of teaching Southside Jiu-jitsu, not to pick a fight but to prevail and survive. His gym has faithful students such as L.A. cop Joe Collins (Max Martini) but never really earns enough of a profit for Mike and his wife, Sondra (Alice Braga). She in turn runs a fabric business that barely keeps the couple afloat financially while barking at him about his adherence to his own life code hindering their ability to make ends meet.
Then he meets a series of people that could potentially shatter through his guarded way of life. One is an emotionally distraught PTSD victim, Laura Black (Emily Mortimer), who accidentally rams the side of his truck and then, in a frenzy misunderstanding, takes Joe’s revolver and shoots out the gym’s front window. Upon the urging of Sondra, Mike goes to the nightclub owned by her brother, Bruno Silva (Rodrigo Santoro), to see about taking a loan. In that club, he then meets an action-movie star, Chet Frank (Tim Allen) who recklessly picks a fight and starts to get beaten by some men until Mike intervenes.
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