Comeuppance Reviews
Brandon (Youngblood) is a tough street brawler whose brother Frankie is killed by gangsters. Now the gangsters are after Brandon for the 40,000 dollars his brother owed. Brandon then flees to a small Southern town where he develops a romance and also lives with his paraplegic father (Trejo). It's not long before Brandon enters the underground Punchfighting circuit where the reigning champion is Victor Dean (Balfour). It turns out the burgeoning romance is with Dean's sister Erin (Abromeit), and Victor's not happy. Brandon moves up the ranks and eventually faces off against Victor. Who will win? The biggest problem with this movie is the editing. There are weird, unnecessary cuts, as well as puzzling camera zooms and spins. The fights are pretty brutal when you can see them, as there are plenty of blood-soaked fences (yes, fences!) to show the extreme nature of the fighting. Also quite extreme is the now-prerequisite playing of the song "Wildfire in the Streets" by Tommy Fields. Surely the makers of all these modern-day Punchfighters must have known that fans don't watch just one of these things. If you like one, you probably will like them all, and fans would notice the constant reappearance of Tommy Fields.The plot is also haphazard, as there is a quick setup with the gangster Gino Ganz which kind of falls by the wayside until much later. All the clichés you know and love are present and accounted for - the training sequence and the silly love story, with its insipid dialogue. There's plenty of "Barnfighting", as Southern "redneck" stereotypes are beaten by Youngblood. There's, inexplicably, a TapouT octagon in the middle of a state fair in the deep south. Their tentacles reach from there to prisons everywhere, as Locked Down (2010) proves.Youngblood is relatively likable, but as you might expect, Danny Trejo is the best actor in the movie. He seems like he doesn't care, but it could be his character.If only the directing and editing were competent, this would be a not-bad modern-day Punchfighter. As it stands, Beatdown is not really a success.for more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com
Kelchubordnor
Before I start my review, please don't watch this if you have epilepsy or any reaction at all to flashing lights. I have very bad eyesight and believe me this movie hurts to watch. Simply put the details are guy is a fighter has to pay off brothers mob debt and fights underground to do it, throw in a beautiful actress and some very decent mma guys including Michael Bisping who is one of the best. That is the story in a nutshell and yes it has been done before a few times. What ruins the whole thing is the atrocious editing. there is so much camera movement, flashing in and out and I could go on but this movie literally made my eyes ache. And I don't just mean the fight scenes which have been obliterated by the atrocious editing. The camera seems to be constantly fighting with the camera man and the director and the editor and nobody wins. This movie would have worked if the camera had stayed focused and just stayed still. I wont get technical about the quality of mma etc as it is too hard to see anything with this movie. I love my action flicks and to be honest I think mortal kombat had better editing than this . Such a shame. I bought this DVD because I saw Michael Bisping on the cover. Wish I hadn't.
zlove-1
This is one of the most painful film experiences I have ever endured. The acting is terrible. The editing is extremely irritating. The story has all the dramatic depth of a six year old's school creative writing assignment. The thinly hidden marketing saturating the movie is distracting. Fight scenes, awful, and in total, around 10 minutes max of the film's 90 (agonizing) minute runtime. You wanna see real fight scenes, watch Asian cinema. Writing, terrible. Characters, wooden and with stupid 'backstories' lifted in a hurry from a billion other (better) films. This whole thing reeks of self-indulgence and money, but offer no shred of entertainment. None. Even like Sunday hangover brainless action fun. It is that bad. Do not ever watch this film, even for free.
oolatech2
I don't know where to begin. I really enjoyed this movie for a number of reasons. First, the romance between Erin and Brandon did not involve a gratuitous sex scene and the nudity in the film had nothing to do with the main characters. Their relationship was extremely wholesome and they spent the majority of their time on screen talking about their feelings.Second, It was full of action packed fights with a lot of blood in a realistic manner. Third, while the ending was somewhat predictable, I felt there was enough of a twist to keep it fresh. This is not a Rocky type movie! I find most movies make the hero a goat first and this one was full of excitement from beginning to end.I thought Michael Bisbing who is one of my favorite fighters was good as Drake, he was playing a former fighter that took fights from time to time to pay the bills. His line delivery was as a matter of fact instead of with feeling but Michael brought his consummate cool which made him a likable supporting character. Props to Susie Abromeit (Erin)for playing the drop dead gorgeous girlfriend without the winy you'll get yourself killed crap. Rudy Youngblood (Brandon)and Eric Balfour (Victor) carried the film as actors and I thought they were the two standout performances in the film. You may remember Brandon's dad from "From Dusk till Dawn" (as the bartender) his character was a paraplegic ex-abusive parent and widower that had found religion to avoid talking about the past and dealing with his emotions regarding his son.If you are a fan of MMA and enjoy a good fight, then this is a movie you could watch again and again. Unless your girlfriend/wife/significant other is in to extreme realistic violence, you may want to watch this without them.
AD
