ILLEGAL street “Fighting” looks like a pretty stable oc cupation compared to, say, newspapering. If our industry keeps heading down the same path, maybe all of us journos will be inquiring about jobs in the bare-knuckle business.
“Fighting” arrives fully charged by the charisma of its star, Channing Tatum, who has landed the lead in the upcoming “G.I. Joe.” Not a bad choice. In a neatly
pared-down, almost wordless precredit sequence, we learn that he’s a nice guy who sometimes lets people take advantage of him, he’s got no job except selling bootlegged books on the sidewalk a block up Sixth Avenue from The Post (“Harry Potter and the Hippopotamus”? Not even “. . . of Azkaban”?) and, when pressed, he can kick the crap out of any five guys who wander into his demolition radius.
Tatum’s got major star quality. He’s a sort of detoolified Vin Diesel, all brute presence that he holds back instead of tatting it up and strutting it around.
His character, a Southern boy, attracts the attention of a street hustler (Terrence Howard, doing a Ratso Rizzo gait and whine — “Grab ya gawbage ‘n’ go!”). The hustler is barely keeping it together after coming here from Chicago with a dream: “I figured I’d save up some cash, play some professional ball, open up a IHOP.”
To its credit, the movie doesn’t overdo the father-figure routine as the hustler gets the fighter a date brawling in a church basement for $5,000, or half my annual salary. Where do I send my resumé? The fight scenes, each of them with its own visual style, get better and more colorful as the movie goes on, and make excellent use of unusually convincing New York locations. Director Dito Montiel, proud son of Astoria, has created one of the New Yorkiest movies in recent years.
Like the city, the fights are sloppy, creative and disrespectful of boundaries, crashing from the street into innocent Bronx bodegas or tumbling from a beautiful rooftop terrace into a penthouse under renovation. When the fists uncurl, though, the movie is even better. Montiel, who also co-wrote the script, fills the movie with convincing New Yorkers of all colors and accents fighting to make it amid a backdrop of shapeless zaniness. When a neighbor’s pup, the size of a rubber ducky, pads by on a leash, Howard grimaces in fear: “Dog’s gotta demon in it,” he mutters. On a date with a waitress (Zulay Henao, another charmer), the fighter buys a fluffy stuffed animal from a guy who happens to be pushing a cart of them down the street.
The waitress is wary, getting tired about 20 years ahead of schedule (“I make $11 an hour. I pick up glasses from people that I hate all night long.”). Also, she lives with her kid and her mother, in what looks a lot like a real, overstuffed New York apartment — the TV is practically cuddled up with the coffee table. Whenever there’s a possibility of a kiss, her tiny mom is suddenly between the couple, registering nonspecific complaints. Another romantic moment goes sour when an elevator door opens — and a skell is propped up in back.
“Fighting” even manages to deliver a couple of mild surprises in the third act, when the fighter finds himself facing off against a guy he knows too well, in a whomping final bout. First, a rundown of the rules, as the ref delivers them: “Whatever you do to each other? Whatever. Whatever you say to each other? Whatever. Now, in the words of that late, great American poet, Marvin Gaye: Let’s. Get. It. On.”
FIGHTING
Punch-drunk love.
Running time: 104 minutes. Rated PG-13 (violence, profanity). At the E-Walk, the 84th Street, the Kips Bay, others.