Redbelt
dir. David Mamet
2008

"Never liked the Swiss, they make them little clocks, these two cocksuckers come out of 'em with these little hammers, hit each other on the head. What kind of sick mentality is that?"
-Pinky, Heist

"Wallace Beery. Wrestling picture. What do you need, a road map?"
-Geisler, Barton Fink

"Bust a deal, face the wheel."
-Auntie Entity, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

"There's more to life than a little money, you know."
-Marge Gunderson, Fargo

Mike Terry (Chiwetal Ejiofor) is martial arts instructor and an honorable man, which is unfortunate for him because skilled, honorable men do not have an easy time in David Mamet's universe.

Terry's business loses money, which troubles his bottom-line oriented wife more than it troubles him. He is doing what is right and what is pure and that is enough for him. To his wife, it seems he is doing what is costly and what is pointless.

And so it goes until an accident in the studio compels Terry to pay just a little more attention to the monthly bills. It is at this point, of course, that the various crooks, shysters, fight promoters and washed up alcoholic action stars come out of the woodwork, all wanting a piece of the Mike Terry experience.

If the man won't get in the ring, the ring will surround the man.

For fans of David Mamet, there are things to love and things to hate about Redbelt.

The long-running Mamet theme of the clash between property and identity, money and honor, the self and the system that gives rise to the self, has been laid bare and stripped down here.

There is the usual complicated "who's conning who?" plot, but it's less pronounced, less precious, less finely tuned than in previous Mamet mindfucks like House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner and Heist.

The Swiss timepiece precision of those stories allows us to suspend disbelief on the plausibility of such schemes. One has to ask, is it really worth it to screw over and murder people in such elaborate ways? Doesn't it make more sense just to apply your apparently superhuman intelligence and creativity to a more reliable line of work?

As Redbelt unfolds, it becomes less and less clear why it is the bad guys went to all the trouble they went to and took all the risks they did. It seems like they could have more easily walked in through the front door of Chiwetal's life than rappelled in through the skylight.

The plot seems to be there because otherwise we wouldn't have a movie. It is a thing unto itself. It is the point of the point.

Mike Terry's purity, his virginal reluctance to compete, his blithe dismissal of concerns like paying for life and having stuff all speak to his crystalline worldview, which mirrors Mamet's own.

The bad guys are there to screw up Terry's life because that's what bad guys do. It is enough that the plot is pure, though it be costly and pointless.

On the plus side, Mamet does seem to be coming around to the idea that actors should show some emotion when reading their lines. Chiwetal Ejiofor's performance (as usual) is particularly impressive.

In Mamet's earlier screen work, he consciously directed actors (including strong talents like Joe Mantegna and William H. Macy) to deliver their lines as if they were reading off a teleprompter. Whether confessing years of betrayal to a loved one on their deathbed or verifying a hotel reservation, there is is but one correct reading: clearly enunciated, flat, even delivery.

The purity, Mamet claims, is on the page. Actors are but a vessel. Nothing about them should be important. Which is all well and good, but it sometimes leaves the audience sitting there like Mrs. Terry asked to admire the purity of a high-intensity emotional situation rendered like a weekend weather report.

In Redbelt, as in Heist and (to a lesser degree) Spartan, Mamet seems to have discovered that actors, and I know this is crazy talk, can impart information to the viewer merely by manipulating the tone of their voice and the expression on their face.

Two and a half stars. Jason Terry says, stop standing where you can hit yourself.