Review of Redbelt (2008) by Tony U — 24 Nov 2008

I was barely able to make it through this movie. That is because of Chiwetel Ejiofor's natural charisma. His acting was decent, but he's a very attractive character and I remember him from Love Actually (Kira Knightly's husband) and in Dirty Pretty Things (an illegal alien african doctor caught in the underworld of organ smuggling in in London). He's very much a character actor in that he's a wise person who's vulnerable to the situation his life has placed himself in.

In Redbelt, he runs into a similar dilemma that his character in Dirty Pretty Things ran into: a big mess in an urban underground life. In this case, it was in a match fixing scandal.

All in all, the acting's just good enough. The story's nearly like Karate Kid with grown up morals and principles. That is to say: not fighting for money on principle. I sort of enjoyed Emily Mortimer's role in the movie and enjoyed the sexual chemistry between her and Ejiofor. Tim Allen has a small, somewhat serious role in this movie and does his best not to come off as his stereotypical comedian self. I would have cast someone other than Allen, but he did ok.

The intelligence of the characters seemed to be lower than the standard IQ of average humans. That tells me that this movie wasn't very well written. The atmosphere of the movie was ok and the complexity of the story was intriguing enough.

I made it to the end and was somewhat satisfied with the resolution, but all in all, I thought the screen play could have been improved and worked on more as there was much to improved on here.

I was very much impressed by the fighting principle of: "there is always a way out of a situation.".

Some nice little nuggets here and there, but many flaws such the scene in the beginning of the movie watching Emily Mortimer's driving a car acting: it was horribly unconvincing....