Beatdown

I've seen some truly awful action movies in the past few months. The good news is that this is better than Amsterdam Heavy. The bad news is that it's not much better. The plot is serviceable, though not really what I would call "good". It's got lots of extraneous, unnecessary details in it, like dead brothers, dead mothers, bad childhoods, abusive fathers, etc. It's just one big heap of melodramatic back story for every character. Now, while I'm grateful for the effort, I have to wonder why they thought all that was necessary. The directing was manic and overly stylized, with constant use of slow motion and close-ups of violence. The soundtrack was absolutely horrible, consisting of what sounds like the most derivative and bland music imaginable. On the positive side, there were some attractive people in the movie, and sometimes they managed to act passably well. The fight choreography was generally pretty good, but the fight scenes were filmed rather poorly. If you like exploitative, MMA-style violence, you may enjoy this movie. Traditional martial arts fans may find the nihilistic, fetishistic violence to be distasteful and a bit too white trash.

If you're desperate for Michael Bay-inspired MMA fights, then I suppose this might be the movie for you.