Not a feel good movie, and awful camera work

Rating: 3/10 (28 December 2011)

I'm a big UFC fan and have started to watch all the MMA movies I could find. I went into watching this movie completely ready to enjoy the story line, the fight scenes, and whatever other magic this film would have to offer. That is, I was ready to like it. Well, sad to say, this movie disappoints on many levels. It starts out fine, with good character development, the hint of some intrigue, the modern theme of foreclosure, and it seems like the movie will be good. The problem is, the way the story unfolds, it definitely is not a feel good movie. Of course, it's obvious to everyone where it's headed, so that's another disappointment - there is no surprise as to how the tournament will turn out, except for who will win. Ultimately, I expected some sort of resolution where both guys win - meaning, one guy wins the fights, yes, but both guys come out winners in real life. The director does the best he can to get to that conclusion, but I think it's just yucky by the end. How can I really feel good after seeing the final fight? Not knowing how the prize money, which has good intentions for both guys, will be used or split? Of course, there had to be the brother reconciliation, that was to be expected, and that part was OK. The two things that really made this movie a stinker are these. The MMA scenes are awful. Just terrible. Why? The camera work! It's dizzying, moves way too fast, there is never any focus, and it all just feels, well, not even frenetic, just like it was the best that could be done to splice together bits of the acted fighting to make it feel intense and high action. I had to look away for parts of the fight because the camera work was so bad, and certainly, you get no sense of what is developing in the fight. Of course, they can't show even a full 5-minute round, but the editing down to what it ended up with was terrible. Then, the final part where one brother gets injured badly - forget it, right then and there, it's just pointless. At least if they'd ended the final fight at the 3rd round at that injury, there would be a semblance of reality in terms of how MMA fights really wind up. The second thing, now, is that everyone kept saying this was the next Rocky feel-good underdog movie. It wasn't. The reason being, by the time you get to the final fight, the whole lead-in is awful, and you feel conflicted knowing brothers are going to fight. How does that feel good? Of course you know why - because the brothers will reconcile. So there should be triumph. But there isn't, not to me. And how could there be? One brother has to lose, and he gets devastatingly injured in a very similar fashion to the way that Antonio Nogueria was in real life (granted, that was after this movie was released). Rocky feels good at the end. Rudy feels good. This movie does not. I usually feel very confident relying on IMDb movie review ratings, and I could see this coming in at 6.5 to 7.0, but no way it's 8.3 in my book. If you're an MMA fan, and if you have any expectation of a feel good Rocky type movie, forget it. This movie turns out to be quite disappointing. Better: Never Back Down 2. That movie isn't as high production quality, but it's better overall to me.