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Fighting Beats Expectations

Rises above its own clichés

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Apr 24, 2009 11:39 AM CDT

(Newser) – Fighting, the story of a Southerner who battles through New York’s underground fight scene, isn’t exactly full of surprises—but it works anyway, critics say.

AO Scott was “unexpectedly delighted” by the film, which swims “through seas of cliché” but emerges “sparkling and fresh,” he writes in the New York Times. “Its ambitions are modest, and it doesn’t pursue them with excessive zeal, which may be why, improbably, it feels like a winner.”

The “vivid” experience “makes otherwise predictable plot movements come as more of a surprise than they should, and it separates the movie from the factory-made widgets of the genre," writes Michael Ordoña in the Los Angeles Times.
Adam Markovitz of Entertainment Weekly is less impressed but notes that lead Channing Tatum “shows an offhand ease on camera that would've come in handy if he were playing an actual character instead of a life-size Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot.”

[Videos (1)]

In this film publicity image released by Universal Pictures, Channing Tatum stars as fighter Shawn MacArthur in "Fighting." (AP Photo/Phillip V. Caruso)

In this photo provided by StarPix, actors Terrence Howard, left, and Channing Tatum attend Rogue Pictures world premiere of the film "Fighting" Monday, April 20, 2009 in New York. (AP Photo/Dave Allocca)

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Fighting Beats Expectations

Rises above its own clichés