I want my money back! I paid top-dollar for in-ring seats at the biggest MMA event of the year and all the fights are rigged! That’s all I have to say about this brutal lovefest, which follows two fighters on the road to “Sparta”, a multi-day tournament in which the winner gets a whopping five-million dollars to spend on whatever he needs.

The woes of their lives, the financial and psychological misfortunes that are supposed to make us cheer them on, serve as the hook. And the twist, the one and only aspect of the plot that makes it different than all those other fight flicks, is that they share the same father; a former alcoholic abuser trying, unsuccessfully, to mend his past.

The fighting; the actual in-ring combat; is entertaining and realistic. Ringside commentators make it almost like watching real UFC fights, but the movie’s emotional element is anything but tough, so the crowd-pleasing outcomes of those matches are unrealistic and anticlimactic; cliché and predictable; all the way to the scripted end.

my rating : 3 of 5

2011