Awful

Rating: 1/10 (23 December 2013)

The film starts off great, a young man (Tom Hardy) returning home to see his dad after 14 years and we want to know where he's been and why he left so we are instantly hooked; turns out his dad was a drunk and Tom Hardy wants nothing to do with him as does Joel Edgerton.
Tom Hardy then joins a local gym, as a child he was an junior Olympic champion 6 years on the run and hadn't lost a match. He decimates the gyms best fighter in about 20 seconds and becomes an internet sensation.
Tom Hardy then gets entered for the'Sparta' tournament where fighters all over the world gathered to fight to see who was the best middleweight in the world with the prize fund of 5million dollars for the winner.
The other character Joel Edgerton is a physics teacher at a high school and a retired outcast UFC fighter, his daughter had heart problems and the medical bills put him in debt so he enters the competition to win the money otherwise he will lose his home. He is Tom Hardy's brother.
The first fight starts with the showing of Tom Hardy being an internet sensation and then a marine recognizing him as the marine who saved a group of Marines lives by heroically ripping the door off a tank. When the fight begins Tom Hardy knocks the first fighter out with one punch and the proceeds to do near enough the same in every fight he's in. Joel has a different approach he gets battered to a pulp for 3 rounds and then submits his opponent and wins. Joel beats the Russian undefeated fighter Koba by doing this. Koba had the same approach as Tom did as he too knocked fighters out very quickly
Non-surprisingly the final fight is between the two brothers Tom and Joel. Tom beats him to a pulp; who had been knocking everyone out in merely a combination of punches fails to do it here for some unbeknown reason and I bet you know what happened next without me telling you, Joel put Tom in a submission and ripped his shoulder muscle, broke his shoulder or dislocated his shoulder; it is not specified. In real life the referee would have stopped the fight as you can't fight with such a significant injury but this film chose to ignore that and the referee acts oblivious to the fact that the once bull in a china shop Tom is now fighting with one arm. Tom is then taken to the ground by the UFC outcast with a head kick and chocked out. An emotional song plays in the background and Joel whilst chocking his brother screams 'I love you' and its all very lovely. They then walk out in each other's arms and it ends.
The film is cheesy, unimaginative and predictable; I could of told you the plot about half an hour in to the film without having to seen it. It's also unrealistic; in UFC you can't come out of retirement after being an 'unmemorable' fighter as the commentator in the film puts it and then become the middle weight champion after a few weeks training. As he does this in less than 90 days because in the film Joel goes to the bank and the banker says his home will be repossessed in 90 days if he does not come up with the money. So I'm going to go down my local gym and you can expect me to be knocking out Cain Velasquez (UFC heavyweight champion) in less than 90 days I assure you.
It made me cringe to watch it was embarrassing filmography and I would certainly not recommend it; as much as I love Tom Hardy as an actor and fighting films, it angered me to watch. The silver lining to this very dark gray cloud is that the fight scenes are good to watch