Fighting

I ended up watching this movie with my significant other, because we heard about it from a friend from our Monday Bible Study group. They recommended it because my wife Alex and I have struggled with a similar situation. I've admittedly been around the block when it comes to internet pornography, and at one point my marriage was on the brink because it got out of hand.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The movie starts showing a boxing scene and switches repeatedly throughout between a man struggling to not watch porn, and fighting a bald scary looking man labeled in the credits as "Demon", trying to show the two situations as similar fights that need to be overcome. The main character, Luke kisses his wife goodbye before trying to make a sandwich, but halfway through applying the mayo he looks at his computer with fear in his eyes knowing he can't possibly resist his natural urges. It goes back to the fight scene, which shows him losing pretty badly to Demon, who I assume is meant to represent the demon of pornographic lusts. Just as he types the word "pornography" into a google search bar, he gets a call from his wife who seems to know exactly what he is doing but Luke lies and says he is just doing household chores. This is a familiar scene to me, on account that more than once my wife has tried calling me when she's not home to check in, only to find me out of breath and acting suspicious.

Luke was able to resist his urges for about fifteen minutes as he took out the trash and did some other chores, but eventually gives in and you see a grown 40-50 year old man weeping at his computer screen for being unable to not watch porn. I don't know about most people, but I find it hard to be aroused when crying. At this point in the boxing ring, he is down and almost out and his coach is criticizing him for not going to the gym anymore. This is complimented by a flashback to he and his wife in bed while she asks why he no longer reads his bible or goes to Bible Study. Eventually the movie resolves by him smashing his computer in the driveway as his wife comes home crying and hugging him out of happiness for overcoming his addiction. He wins the fight against Demon and the crowd is congratulatory. There is an outer monologue about how every man has to fight this fight everyday, the good fight for being a better person and resisting your inner nature.

Now, as for my personal thoughts on this movie as someone who has struggled with internet pornography, I found it nice to see some representation for a problem that me and several of my friends have dealt with and are dealing with. In today's day and age it's almost impossible not to see a naked woman on every corner, be it in McDonald's advertisements or on Facebook on your phone. When there is an entire database at your fingertips of all the sinful images and videos your heart could desire, it's almost impossible to resist and stay true to what you know is right.

That being said, I wasn't a fan of how the movie portrayed porn addicts. Not every person struggling is a 40 year old man crying at his computer, and the way he dealt with it wasn't through prayer or seeking community help, but rather through smashing his computer. This is hardly a solution in today's world where a computer is necessary for work or family. If there is one thing I would change about this movie, it would be the ending. The analogy to a boxing match seemed fitting enough, because it does seem like your inner demons are beating you constantly and sometimes it's impossible to get back in the ring and tackle them again and again, but truly deep down you know it is the right thing to do.

I can only conclude that the script for this film was only 3 pages long and basically consisted of phrases like "This guy tries to convince this other guy to fight" "this guy decides to fight" "They fight." all the dialogue had to be improvised by the actors and either they weren't good at improvising or the director wasn't paying attention so they just kept talking and talking and talking and they had to edit together the most coherent dialogue possible. There are only 3 or 4 fights in the film. The first fight lasts a total of I believe 30 seconds before the opponent travels head-first into a water fountain. The second fight gets broken up before it even starts, the third fight (if there was one) I don't even remember. The last fight was the only one that was moderately decent.

Been a while since I watched this movie so I can't elaborate too much, but forgettable fights, characters you don't care about, awful dialogue. I'd say avoid this one unless you enjoy being bored.

There seemed to be a positive attitude before the film started – which was given a helping hand by the "star" of the film Channing Tatum (who plays Shawn MacArthur) making a guest appearance before the film started to introduce the movie.

A bit of a poor man's Rocky, with (believe it or not) an even worse story. Delving into the seedy, underground world of bare-knuckle fighting – with no holds barred.

A new kid in town, down on his luck in the big City meets up with and becomes unlikely friends with a less than successful con man / fight promoter and his entourage of misfits and vagabonds. The fights get increasingly intense as each opponent gets bigger and stronger than the last, until the big showdown with a boyhood nemesis.

Meanwhile, as a sub-plot, the up-and-coming fighter tries to woo a club waitress by always turning up whenever she is around … alas, I suppose stalking has the same effect as a bunch of roses to some people today.

This was a poorly directed film, and the characters were pretty wooden, the story was very laboured and moved very slowly.

The redeeming features were some of the fight scenes (that were a bit on the brutal side), and the "comedy" performance of the girlfriend's Mother that kept popping into the room on the most inappropriate of moments! Although the fight sequences may be of interest to some – I would say that many others would find these quite off putting.

The film tries to save itself with some plot twists, but, unfortunately – you could see these punches coming from a long way off.

Channing Tatum in the opening introduction before the film started described the plot line of the movie as being loosely based on "Midnight Cowboy" – but it is a very loose connection both in story, acting ability or finished result – and this film definitely wasn't the winner.

Dito Montiel's film has been advertised as the 'Rocky of our generation', however I do believe they were referring to the fifth film in the Rocky franchise. Predictable, boring, tedious, lifeless are just a few words I could use to describe this film, but I really only need to use one; terrible.

Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum) is your typical working-class boy who is taken under the wing of an ageing con-man named Harvey (Terrence Howard) and given the opportunity to make his American dream come true by participating in various back-room bare-knuckle fights. Oh, and the stereotypical love-interest in the form Zulay (Zulay Henao) is also thrown into the mix. Now, despite this description describing various films from the last few years (never mind the last few decades), it contains three huge, jaw-shattering constraints: 1) Despite being named Fighting, the film ironically contains very little fighting or brawling in regards to its hundred-minute running time. And when we do get to see some face-bruising action, the Director seems to get incredibly giddy with the camera and what we are left with is some Paul Greengrass jerkiness that allows you to observe very little especially when the camera is thrown into the heart of the action.

2) Terrence Howard puts a little effort into his character and drags out a performance worthy of a film better than this, however Channing Tatum does not follow his lead. His stony expression and Brando-style mumbling is just plain annoying and unconvincing, yet he is the lead protagonist at the forefront of the film, and his performance drags the film down considerably.

3) Finally, Munic and Montiel's script has about as much weight as a feather and as punch as a fighter out-cold on the mat. We learn little about the characters until late into the film when there life stories seem to just be thrown around quickly to fill various plot-holes. While, the majority of the dialogue is just clichéd and cringe-worthy, most notably a scene at the end of the film that precedes the final fight sequence, which can only be described as hilariously idiotic.

Fighting is crime against cinema. It is a film which gives the audience absolutely nothing, yet takes from them their hard-earned cash in the form of their admittance fee. The only reason I can think why this film was distributed to theatres instead of being a straight-to-DVD affair, is down to the influence of having a star like Terrence Howard in the picture. Don't waste your time or money on this abomination.

It was well made, but clearly not worth seeing in theaters. All in all, besides a number of movies that this resembles (as you can read in the other IMDb comments), it was truly a poor case of storytelling. The dialog was very close to being on the nose allowing for the most predictable storyline and course of events. Best parts were the fighting which was filmed "O.K." and the women, a.k.a. "sex." New York felt very real throughout this movie, but with the American Gangster soundtrack being used repetitively it quickly lost it's realism. Acting was cool, but then again the characters were unbelievable and boring.

I say 4 out of 10. It could have been filmed like clover-field and still received the same rating. If the story would have been more original, then I would have said higher rating.

Oh and the "Antagonist" throughout this storyline made me laugh. My 5 year old nephew could take him down let alone our main character.