In the last few years cage fighting has really exploded onto the sporting scene, combing mixed martial arts this blood bath of hand to hand combat does not suffer fools lightly. Unrivaled could be described as Rocky meets Fight Club, one mans rise to the top.
Ringo Duran is a bartender at a strip club deep in debt to crime boss Serigo, to make ends meet he goes underground and competes in cage fights in the vain attempt to win some money, all the while holding the dream of becoming a professional fighter alive.
Duran though is old, passed his prime and unable to follow in his mothers footsteps, who herself was a cage fighting warrior. Duran has lost his heart and his desire to win, so when he is entered in to a cage fighting competition to discover the new breed of fighter Duran must pull it together to survive, or face the punishment and humiliation in the ring.
Unrivaled is graphic, no question, a shot of Duran sewing himself together after one fight is a clear sign that this is a brutal sport. If the fight scenes are choreographed then they have executed that direction well, but given that this is a no holes bard contest I doubt that any of them were. They are very realistic and one can only imagine that some of the stars, many of whom are actually on the MMA cage fighting circuit went all out.
Names like, Rashad ‘Sugar’ Evans, Forrest Griffin, Keith ‘The Dean of Mean’ Jardine and Nate ‘The Great’ Marquardt, they may sound like amateur wrestlers but there is no acting here, no scripts, well only one….to beat their opponent into the ground.
Script wise it’s hardly draped in Oscar gold, and I have seen a lot worse, it is very predictable for one. However, to cage fighting fans I doubt they are going to care too much, some scenes are boarder line soft porn which to be perfectly honest was not really needed and only lowered the tone of the film as another “straight to DVD flick”.
The acting is average at best, the MMA fighters don’t need to try too hard as that is what they do on a daily basis, but they are at least convincing.
It’s a good effort and for a neutral like myself who has never really watched the sport but loves action, it was an enjoyable watch. Harsh critics are probably going to slate it, but the more well rounded open to all critic might just pass it off as a run of the mill film, which is pretty much what it is.
Unrivaled is released on DVD May 24th.
View the trailer
Rating:
(3/5)
Visit the IMDb page for Unrivaled
Please feel free to leave a comment about this film, I would love to know what you think and I will do my best to respond!
This is nothing like MMA in the UK – real fights take place all over the country. This site has better videos http://www.uccmma.com