Redbelt has been on my radar for quite a while now and Coming Soon have posted an exclusive first look still at the flick.
The movie stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as a Jiu-jitsu master whose purity is put into threat when he becomes involved in the movie business and is manipulated into brawling in the ultimate fighting world. In a strange but cool bit of casting, Tim Allen will play a troubled action star with marital problems. Also in the movie are Emily Mortimer, Rodrigo Santoro, Rebecca Pidgeon and Alice Braga.
David Mamet directs what looks to be his most interesting work for quite some time…
The film is based on the true story of Washington D.C. radio presenter Ralph Greene who overcame drug addiction and jail time to become one of the most prominent personalities on Washington’s airwaves in the 1970’s. He even got invited to the Whitehouse by invitation of President Carter.
Looks pretty cool, even if it has the feeling of “Give me an Oscar, I’m playing a real life person”.
But let’s be honest, most of the time these biopics of people’s lives win Oscars because they are actually good films. Cheadle looks bad ass in this.
Whenever I think of American Gangster, I can’t help but think of TheDeparted. In truth, the only similarities between the two movies is the late in the year release date, a full to the brim cast, a legendary director and the “Gangster” element.
The plot and the tone of the movies will be very different indeed.
The news today from Variety is that Ejiofor will be working with director David Mamet for the Sony Pictures Classic Jiu-Jitsu movie Redbelt.
“Redbelt” stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as a Jiu-Jitsu master who has eschewed prizefighting tooperate a self-defense studio. When he is conned by a cabal of movie stars and fight promoters, he must enter the ring to fightin order to regain his honor.
The movie will be financed and globally distributed on a small budget of $10 million.
An American Samurai-like movie? Are you kidding me…. this sounds awesome.
I’ve only seen Ejiofor in two movies, Love Actually and last summer’s bore-fest Serenity. I dunno what it is about that movie but I was so bored watching it in the cinema, I can’t believe so many people liked it, although I did think Ejiofor came out of the movie with a good performance.
Must admit, American Gangster is shaping up to be a hell of a film. Next year is going to be a great year to visit the cinema.
