Fighting: Puños de asfalto

This thrilling movie deals with a tight-lipped hunk who is introduced to the world of underground street fierce brawling by a seasoned scam artist, who becomes his manager . In New York City, a young counterfeiter named Shawn McArthur (Channing Tatum) tries to come up with a way to get enough money to live . The desperate young knocks several robbers when they attempt to rob him some goods. After that he comes into contact with street-fight promoter , a hustler named Harvey (Terrence Howard). Shawn teams up with the organizer of no-holds-barred bare-knuckle fights that secretly entertain the wealthy across the streets and slums of N.Y.C. and links Shawn up with Martinez (Luis Guzman). Shawn is soon fighting various contenders -ranging from a Harlem bouncing to an Oriental fighter - earning money to help keep his new sweetheart (Zulay Enao) who comes to love him . Shawn decides that he has something worth brawling for and sets everything on the line to vanquish . Although Shawn only wants to bash opponents long enough to gain enough money to assist his girlfriend, he is reluctant to let tricks in combats on the fighting circuit .Every knock-out brings him closer to the existence he's always wished , but also carries him in a deadly cobweb he can't getaway.

The picture contains drama ,thrills , and lots of violent brawls plenty of punch , kicks, and knockouts. Acceptable performance from Channing Tatum as impulsive young becoming a professional street-fighter and battling a variety of contenders , plus Zulay Enao gives a surprisingly good acting as his gorgeous love interest and special mention to Terrence Howard as the sharpster who arranges his bare-knuckled bouts . The picture belongs to sub-genre about street combats as ¨Lionheart¨ with Jean Claude Van Damme and whose maxim representation turns out to be the classic ¨Hard times¨ by Walter Hill with Charles Bronson and James Coburn . It's a colorful but violent entertainment that results to be the second film of his director Dito Montiel. His first movie was the dramatic ¨Guide to recognizing the saints ¨and in preparation ¨The son of no one¨ also with Channing Tatum and Al Pacino . Rating : passable , only for those who like films in which fist-play are staged ad nauseam .

Not sure what disposition everyone else was in when watching this movie but it must have been a dark one.

Yes, its a formulaic fighting movie and I can understand that it might rub you up the wrong way but I really liked the minimal insecure way in which the down on their luck main characters Shawn (Channing Tatum) Harvey (Terrence Howard) held themselves acting wise and I thought they established an excellent rapport by the end. The casting overall felt just right.

Neither of them were likable in the beginning and it was this roughness that gave the film more realism. I don't think you can really compare this to Never Back Down which was, like many beat em up movies, more of a glossy cartoon with human actors. 'Fighting' has more of a grime to it, made immersing by excellent cinematography of NYC and cool locations.

I liked the fact that the fight scenes were not an all singing and all dancing over stylised Tonay Jaa affair. Because of this I felt totally absorbed by the 'in the crowd' camera shots; catching different angles. You really felt the fighting was more realistic, as if you've ever been in a fight you'll know that technique can only take you so far- Its really down to mind, heart and of course luck.

Nothing was overstated in this film and I think that might be the reason it has received such bad rating. I don't care that it felt budget and its nice to have an understated fighting movie for once without too many bells and whistles.

It was well made, but clearly not worth seeing in theaters. All in all, besides a number of movies that this resembles (as you can read in the other IMDb comments), it was truly a poor case of storytelling. The dialog was very close to being on the nose allowing for the most predictable storyline and course of events. Best parts were the fighting which was filmed "O.K." and the women, a.k.a. "sex." New York felt very real throughout this movie, but with the American Gangster soundtrack being used repetitively it quickly lost it's realism. Acting was cool, but then again the characters were unbelievable and boring.

I say 4 out of 10. It could have been filmed like clover-field and still received the same rating. If the story would have been more original, then I would have said higher rating.

Oh and the "Antagonist" throughout this storyline made me laugh. My 5 year old nephew could take him down let alone our main character.

Dito Montiel's film has been advertised as the 'Rocky of our generation', however I do believe they were referring to the fifth film in the Rocky franchise. Predictable, boring, tedious, lifeless are just a few words I could use to describe this film, but I really only need to use one; terrible.

Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum) is your typical working-class boy who is taken under the wing of an ageing con-man named Harvey (Terrence Howard) and given the opportunity to make his American dream come true by participating in various back-room bare-knuckle fights. Oh, and the stereotypical love-interest in the form Zulay (Zulay Henao) is also thrown into the mix. Now, despite this description describing various films from the last few years (never mind the last few decades), it contains three huge, jaw-shattering constraints: 1) Despite being named Fighting, the film ironically contains very little fighting or brawling in regards to its hundred-minute running time. And when we do get to see some face-bruising action, the Director seems to get incredibly giddy with the camera and what we are left with is some Paul Greengrass jerkiness that allows you to observe very little especially when the camera is thrown into the heart of the action.

2) Terrence Howard puts a little effort into his character and drags out a performance worthy of a film better than this, however Channing Tatum does not follow his lead. His stony expression and Brando-style mumbling is just plain annoying and unconvincing, yet he is the lead protagonist at the forefront of the film, and his performance drags the film down considerably.

3) Finally, Munic and Montiel's script has about as much weight as a feather and as punch as a fighter out-cold on the mat. We learn little about the characters until late into the film when there life stories seem to just be thrown around quickly to fill various plot-holes. While, the majority of the dialogue is just clichéd and cringe-worthy, most notably a scene at the end of the film that precedes the final fight sequence, which can only be described as hilariously idiotic.

Fighting is crime against cinema. It is a film which gives the audience absolutely nothing, yet takes from them their hard-earned cash in the form of their admittance fee. The only reason I can think why this film was distributed to theatres instead of being a straight-to-DVD affair, is down to the influence of having a star like Terrence Howard in the picture. Don't waste your time or money on this abomination.

I've never in my life felt like my head was going to explode while watching a movie. Throughout the whole film I tried making sense of it all, and finally just came to my senses, it's down right horrible.

Every emotion was misplaced. The dialogue didn't mesh. There was no build up aside from the minor tension between Channing Tatum and Brian J. White.

The movie "cleverly titled" FIGHTING, had not a single worthwhile fight scene in it worth watching. In fact the whole time, I couldn't understand why he was getting praised as a good fighter. It's not even till the very end that you even see a fight where you feel he's got some fighting talent.

I could go into how horrible each actor was, but ultimately decided it wasn't their fault. I'm 100% convinced that the director had no idea how to coach his actors, nor how to write a good script. In fact I'm almost convinced he encouraged them to do horribly.

I felt Brian White did well. And the only other acting that I really could tolerate was the crazy old grandmother. Everything else just seemed like interacting characters were reading from separate scripts.

I used a free promo code to save $1 at RedBox to watch this movie, and I'm still disappointed I didn't get my money's worth.