Street

Whew, this was a tough one to sit through. I'm good friends with a member of the cast (who will remain nameless in this review) I was curious why he didn't hound me to check out his latest film. Normally, I get overwhelmed with requests from him to watch his work, now I see why. I'll try to keep this as professional as possible but I have to be honest like I always am. Lets start with the cast, my friend withstanding, this cast was just flat out awful. The lead Beau Smart carrying the lead of a film is about as far fetched as me playing CF for my beloved Dodgers next season, sounds great in fantasy land but in reality it would be an epic fail. In spite of his clear shortcomings as an actor, much less a lead, the supporting cast is almost as bad. Even my friend, who is definitely a strong actor, falls a bit short on bringing his character to life. This tells me one thing, the director let down the cast. Now, I believe the director was clearly in over his head, but giving him all the blame would be like a NFL team firing their head coach after a 2-14 season. The players still have to play and this cast just wasn't up for the challenge and/or simply aren't skilled enough. Enough on the cast and the director, nothing really redeeming on those fronts.

The story? Well, my first response would be "what story?." A film like this isn't really designed to captivate an audience through story telling, I get that, but at least make an effort. The martial arts aspect is clearly the star of this film, but it's not strong enough to carry the film throughout. The story becomes very predictable, almost hokey which it was not intended to be at all. The very underwhelming, and at times embarrassingly bad, cast doesn't help infuse anything that would be even loosely considered interesting. What is most frustrating about this film is that they obviously stole story lines from other films, which is fine because it's really a common practice nowadays in cinema. The difference is that when most films do this, they enhance the story they are ripping off, Street actually lifted these story lines and went the other way by watering them down, like watching the cinematic version of skim milk.

Technically the film was fine, considering its a low budget project. There were a few issues, mainly lighting and a few focus pulls, but nothing that compares to the misfortune that was the unfortunate combination of acting, directing and writing. This marks the lowest rating of any film that I have ever reviewed. I love indie films and the filmmakers that put so much into bringing their work to life, but this project just failed miserably on all the key aspects.

The general acting is OK for a zero budget movie like this. It is FAR from good but the bigger problem than the actor's abilities is the horrible directing. The whole make of the movie looks like a film school project of a beginners class and that's 50% the director's fault. 40% of the rest that is bad is on the seriously bad and cheap production. I wouldn't be surprised if it was made over the course of two weekends with a budget of less than 10.000$.

The story is predictable but if you watch a movie of this type you are probably a martial arts fan and can forgive a lot. I know I have enjoyed movies with a story that's worse if the action rocks. So how about the fights? In few and fitting words: Unimaginative and boring. You can see that Beau Casper Smart has the moves - being a professional dancer it comes as no surprise. But it seems the choreographer has no experience choreographing fight scenes. It looks like he watched a few MMA fights, then made up a list of moves that he thinks are typical, pressed shuffle and just went with the outcome. There are barely any dynamics in the fights, the camera angles are boring and mostly sub par, the cuts feel like someone said "hey, don't forget a cut and angle change there, dude" at some point.

I think if you put a real fight choreographer in charge of the fights, give the camera to someone who's used one for more than a couple of family vacations and make sure the director isn't stoned or on the crapper while the action is happening you could get some really good results out of Beau Casper Smart. Comparing his acting to Van Damme or Segal he actually looks pretty good. Compare him to Scott Adkins, though, and you see he still has a loooong way ahead of him. But I'd definitely watch it if he gave another martial arts flick a try.

I was very excited to see that there is finally a new MMA movie out and that it is a respectable movie. I knew going in that this was not a high budget movie and quite honestly I was being a bit of a pessimist which probably worked in the movie's favor. I expected bad writing, bad acting, cheesy fights and a plot as invisible as Wonder Woman's plane. I am not comparing this movie to Here Comes the Boom, I am comparing it realistically as a small budget film and I have to say that when I first saw Beau Casper Smart in the opening scenes in his apartment with the corn rows, I was not too sure I was going to like the protagonist so I was already thinking the worst but to my surprise the movie, Smart and the other characters started to grow on me and though it does not end with Rocky style heroics and a 7 - 12 minute long music infused fight scene, it is much more of what you typically expect from MMA fights that last 3 rounds. A bit more realistic if you ask me. Most fights in real life do not last nearly as long as Hollywood portrays. A lot less like volcano eruptions and a lot more like earthquakes. I have to say that when the movie was over it made the cut and now sits on my DVD shelf in the fight movie section right beside Here Comes the Boom and Blood Sport. I will admit that there were a couple of cheesy scenes where Smart falls in love with the lady lead and the first workout sequence building up to the big fight; music was like something you would see in a faith based film but what the film did was tell a story from start to finish that actually made sense. I wish that they would have shown the female lead, Kate Minor, up to down a little more. She has some sexy legs. Only one scene shows them.

The movie and storyline itself was enjoyable but the editing of the film is what ruined its potential to be great.

Hey I was wondering if anybody knows the name of the very first song they play in this movie I've been trying to find it but I can't ! Please and thank you! it goes something like this "I've been here before I'm not gonna fall, well prepared ready for war, it's time to bet it all it's time to settle the score, A champion me from the start, was born with it see I do it from the heart, it's time to go get it it's time to tear them apart, it's time to jump with it, weak from the strong great from elite I came right out of the streets, where we all fight they eat, where we all fight for peace, I'm about to be king of the streets, I don't really care what you say I run the streets, I'm from the streets, I'm a champion inside I can't be beat, oh yeah oh yeah, cause I'm from the streets yeah I been through things you can't talk about