This pugilistic punch fest hit movie theaters this week with a plot line that will have you cheering for the underdog even as you cringe at the excessive and overly scripted violence, The bruising fight scenes detract from a surprising plot twist that could have set up a knockout performance.
Two brothers, both martial artists, meet in a championship fight with no holds barred and a huge winner-take-all purse at stake. Not that these brothers need any incentive to beat one another to a pulp. They haven’t spoken since the breakup of their family when each brother chose to live with a different parent.
The older brother, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), is an unemployed high school physics teacher, who needs the money to avoid losing his home to foreclosure. The younger brother, Tommy (Tom Hardy), needs the money to help the widow of his fallen Army buddy. As boys, both brothers wrestled under the coaching of their alcoholic father (Nick Nolte). With a big martial arts tournament just three weeks away, each man decides to get back in the ring. That’s where Director Gavin O’Connor’s film takes a dive.
The audience is asked to believe that an out-of-shape high school teacher and a drug-addicted ex-Marine can battle their way through the best fighters on the planet in a two-day tournament. Few familiar with martial arts will fall for that sucker punch. But the filmmakers keep on swinging. They play up the co-stars as underdogs by pitting them against humongous, real-life fighters who dwarf them in the ring. Then they show Tommy knocking out his opponents with one punch and Brendan taking a beating until overcoming his opponents with last minute moves. The fight scenes are so repetitive that by the third round of the tournament, audiences may wish the filmmakers had a better cut-man in their corner.
The only uncontrived and unpredictable aspect of the film is: what happens when the two underdogs meet? Which brother wins? The film may be a technical knockout, but no matter who you’re rooting for, you’ll find something to cheer about in the way it ends.