Redbelt (2008)
You can be forgiven for finding the idea of Redbelt enticing. The notion of filmmaker-playwright David Mamet (a master of a distinct mood of simmering inner macho heat, greed and cruelty) tackling the corrupt world of pay-per-view sports is a promising one. Hell, the notion of Mamet stepping into the action arena at all is cause for an optimistic raise of the eyebrow. Mamet, at his best (it’s admittedly been awhile) spins electric dialogue of peerless musical fuck you aggression that has a redemptive, unexpected grace of timing and structure: haikus of the damned, the innocent and everyone in between. The chance that Mamet might find a syntax equivalent to that of his verbal wizardry seems especially great in the action genre, can’t miss really; both, at their best, relying on the spinning of poetry from aggression.
Redbelt is blessed with the usual Mamet cast: a mixture of the expected (Ricky Jay, Joe Mantegna, Rebecca Pidgeon) and the purposefully, ironically out of place (Tim Allen, Emily Mortimer) but the picture, such as it is, rests on the inspired, could’ve been iconic if the picture was up to him casting of Chiwetel Ejiofor. Ejiofor is playing a movie staple: a principled, centered, humble hero, in this case a jiu-jitsu instructor, who finds himself tempted by vice and compromise following a series of unlikely coincidences and encounters. Ejiofor is minimal and commanding, conjuring the fantasy of a divorced from temptation good guy without looking prudish, no small feat; Mamet apparently getting off, for once, on creating a character of unquestioned, un-ironic purity.
The Mamet fan will be on guard earlier than the casual viewer, we know that a coincidence isn’t merely a coincidence, right? Mamet pictures, particularly the Mamet pictures that firmly reside in the man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, trust no one genre, are a little like feature length versions of that chilling scene that occurs late in the third act of The Game, (which could’ve been a horror riff on early Mamet anyway) when the Michael Douglas character discovers every person he casually encountered throughout the picture eating dinner together in a cafeteria. Everyone is normally in on it, nothing is chance. A panic stricken woman accidentally shooting Ejiofor’s window out, for example, immediately sets the Mamet fan’s truth sensors swirling.
The picture hums and flows in a way that Mamet fans will recognize and probably treasure, for an hour or so anyway. Ricky Jay and Joe Mantegna fire mannered Mamet dialogue in a manner only they can. Tim Allen makes a bid for career redemption with a part that ultimately, like much of the movie, proves to be beside the point. Alice Braga is sexy as a woman who immediately arouses suspicion for being a woman in a David Mamet movie. Emily Mortimer continues to make neediness somehow attractive. David Paymer plays (effectively) the same part he’s essentially played his entire career. Mamet’s action, which some have had problems with, is actually the element of the picture that is underrated, coming in clipped, succinct, whizzy bursts that do actually manage to effectively mirror Mamet’s verbal rhythms. It’s the dialogue itself that falters.
I’m treading water. Redbelt is competent, never particularly boring, but it doesn’t ever amount to anything, it’s a jack in the box picture, winding, winding, winding, except the jack never pops out of the box. All of one’s hopes for a Mamet sports film (either a serious examination or a thrilling, brutal B movie or something in between) are dashed in the service of a picture that simply blows away, neither good nor bad. Redbelt is Mamet’s House of Cards, the punch-line being that it’s not worth the effort.
★★½
May 13th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Yeah, I am kind of not interested in seeing this film, but probably will at some stage.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Too bad … hope this isn’t indicative of what’s in store since Mamet declared himself a conservative. I was hoping for more. I love good Mamet.
Good review … haikus of the damned. Nice.
What’s the last exceptional Mamet?
May 13th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Should I see it, should I not? Should I see it, Should I not …
May 13th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I went with not and Chuck kind of sealed its fate.
Then again..it’s Ejiofor…
May 14th, 2008 at 4:55 am
Good question Rick. For me the last across the board satisfying Mamet film (as both writer and director) is probably The Spanish Prisoner or The Winslow Boy. I think I enjoyed Heist at the time, but I havent seen it since the theatre and I do seem to remember having some issues with it, even if those issues are hard for me to recall now.
I don’t care for State and Main or Spartan (though Spartan has one of the more promising beginnings in the Mamet canon but doesn’t capitalize).
All that said, I thought Stuart Gordon’s film of Mamet’s Edmond was stunning, and that was only a few years ago (even if its based on older material).
Though, of course, even though he didn’t direct it, the definitive Mamet film is still Glengarry Glen Ross.
Mamet’s first picture behind the camera, House of Games, probably remains his best, though I haven’t seen Things Change.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:49 am
I saw THE SPANISH PRISONER on a flight back from Amsterdam and I wanted to take the plane down after Rebecca Pidgeon’s awful line readings. Plus, I figured it out in the first 15 minutes.
I find Mamet staggeringly overrated, which is not to take away from his great stuff. But his pompous Chicago via Beverly Hills tuff guy act has gotten old.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Redbelt certainly won’t convert you Christian. I’m not going to mount too aggressive of a defense of Spanish Prisoner, I liked it at the time, but haven’t seen it since the time, so my memory is a little iffy. Pidgeon is awful, no doubt, in anything, thankfully, Mamet keeps her to a minimum in Redbelt.
I will give anything the author of Glengarry writes a chance though. Mamet deserves something for, at the very least, giving some of the finest actors of the last few decades some of the best material of their careers. Lemmon, particularly, has never been better than in glengarry.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Mamet’s material seems to reach greater heights when someone else is directing. If it’s older material (like Edmond) that helps, too.
Glengarry Glen Ross is so good it’s scary.
May 15th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I saw this last night and was highly annoyed. I can’t say I was disappointed because I knew you’d low-starred it, but it was still an exercise in patience for me to sit through it. Your jack-in-the-box metaphor is SO accurate. I don’t know if anyone writes more original reviews than you, Chuck.
May 16th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Thank you very much Daniel.