By Kevin Bowen

Has Midnight Cowboy been re-imagined as a Jean Claude Van Damme underground fight tournament? This was my first impression upon seeing “Fighting,” a disappointing film, despite some decent acting from ap-and-coming star Channing Tatum (“Stop-Loss”) and Terrence Howard. 

You know a film named “Fighting” is in trouble when it doesn’t even work on the meager terms that one would expect from its familiar genre. A good, violent fight scene can jar unwanted thrills from our reptilian mind. Yet most of the fight scenes here are doused in lethargy.  

But before we dismiss the film completely, there are a few good things going on here. So many violent action films resort to cardboard characters. Admirably and fairly successfully, “Fighting” takes time to develop the relationship between its two lone men.  The first is a nice-guy lug (Channing Tatum), trying to desperately survive in New York, soon tempted by big money to a world of underground brawling. The other is a sweet-natured hustler (Terrence Howard) who knows when he sees a good thing.  

The two men meet as Tatum’s Shawn MacArthur, not long off the bus from Alabama, tries to hock counterfeit books on the streets, outside Radio City Music Hall, thus the link to “Midnight Cowboy.”  Since the yarn is set in New York, we need that quick, easy landmark to make sure we know we’re not in Atlanta. A group of thieves tries to make off with his supply of Harry Potter and the Hippopotamus.  Shawn puts up his dukes. The thieves take some punches but get away.

When Shawn later runs into the thieves at a diner, the hustler-in-chief (Howard) catches his ear. The penniless young man can make thousands of quick dollars in backroom no-holds-barred prizefighting in front of small, wealthy audiences. Shawn gives it a thought, feels his wallet, and says yes. Soon they are catching trains to exotic places like The Bronx for Shawn to punch and gouge rough men. As they do so, a degree of friendship forms between the two men, as the veteran of the street teaches the newcomer the ropes of the New York hustle.

There is an assortment of other characters circling the screen to little excitement or effect. There’s a pretty waitress to woo (Zulay Henao), who comes with a young daughter to buy stuffed bunnies for.  Luis Guzman lends his threateningly smooshed face as a rival street hustler. And inevitably, there’s the champion ultimate fighter (Brian White), who, against all laws of probability and the Cosmos, has an acrimonious history with our hero back in Alabama.

Since the twin accomplishment of Crash and Hustle + Flow four years ago, Terrence Howard’s predicted rise has flattened into a mysterious stasis, bottoming out with his non-entity status in “Iron Man,” last summer.  Yet in this simple effort he seems refreshed. While in voice and manner, he and his character seem to lean on Midnight Cowboy’s Ratso Rizzo, he adds a streetwise sadness to the events. You sense in him a man in need of companionship and thirsting for a sliver of success in a landscape that punishes dreams.

The stiff charismatic young Channing gives us a palooka we can halfway believe in. He seems naturally placed among the elements of the New York streets. And he does it while retaining a baby-faced likability that his character will need as he strangles his opponents to the near death.

While these characters are strongly drawn, the care on the human side isn’t matched with care in story development. We know we’re headed for one big payday and a twist (in this case, a very weak twist) to get there. Time also gets unreasonably compressed. Tatum’s rise among the ranks of street fighters is unrealistically swift. Perhaps this is a good argument for those boring Rocky-esque knockout montages. A good streetwise film can highlight the interplay of personal moral codes, but there is only the lamest hint of such a conflict in this film’s struggles.

The best choice made by former indie director Dito Montiel, who earned some praise for his debut feature “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Fest, was to shoot on a grainy film stock. It makes New York seem like a rough urban jungle, rather than a slick urban fantasyland. However, while the look of the film is good, there’s not much in the way of vision.  Ultimately, it’s a film of banal voyeurism, which doesn’t even fully deliver on that promise. 

Credits

A Universalrelease of a Rogue Picturespresentation of a Misher Filmsproduction. Produced by Kevin Misher. Executive producers, Lisa Bruce, Andrew Rona. Directed by Dito Montiel. Screenplay, Robert Munic, Montiel.
 
Cast

Shawn MacArthur - Channing Tatum
Harvey Boarden - Terrence Howard
Zulay Velez - Zulay Henao
Martinez - Luis Guzman
Jack Dancing - Roger Guenveur Smith
Evan Hailey - Brian White