MMA Fighting - ‘Bruised’ Review: Halle Berry Delivers The Best MMA Fight Scene Ever | This Is CineMMA

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Halle Berry kicks ass! On the latest episode of This is CineMMA, the MMA Fighting movie review crew walk the long road back to redemption with the 2020 drama Bruised, written, directed, and starring Berry. The Academy Award-winning actress plays Jackie Justice, a onetime UFC star who gets a second chance to kickstart her cagefighting career when she gets the offer to fight an Invicta FC champion, played by Valentina Shevchenko. But will Justice’s traumatic past derail her ambitions? In our second crack at reviewing a female-led MMA drama (shout-out to Fight Valley!), Alexander K. Lee, Jed Meshew, and E. Casey Leydon pay respect to Berry and Shevchenko’s incredible work, while also pointing out what the film gets right and what it gets wrong about the world of fighting. Is Berry vs. Shevchenko one of the best fight scenes ever? How much trauma can one character take? And what did they do with Invicta FC boss Shannon Knapp in this movie? Mend your wounds and spend some time with us for the answers to these questions and more. Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, the downloaded.

It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Welcome back, welcome back, everyone, to another episode of this is Cinema, and May Fighting's martial arts movie podcast. Time once again for the old lumpy bumpy, um, no, sorry,

We are not doing Fight Valley again as much as I've wanted to do. I did want to turn that into a two-episode series. I was denied. Instead, we are going with another female-led budding film. It is time for bruised, guys. This movie is produced, directed, starring the majestic Hallie Berry. This 2020 film Seatsbury playing Jackie Justice, and once promising fighter who's fallen on very hard times,

but gets on a road to redemption that ends up with her fighting a world champion played by, MMA superstar Valentina Jevchenko. So I'm very excited to talk about this one. I am joined, as always, by the Wonderful's. Wonderfuls, that's how you pluralize wonderful. Wonderful's Jed Mishu and E. Casey Lion. Say hi, fellas.

There's Jed. Too busy, grooving. Getting down. A little distressing sign in the background. Oh, yeah. I'm trying to enjoy the good vibes right now because the rest of this program will not be good vibes. Yes, we should, we should, uh, warm, Let's give a trigger warning ahead of time, guys.

The spoiler-free synops is over, so spoilers are coming, and a little bit of a trigger warning. This movie involves domestic violence. It talks about rape. It's pretty heavy. Incest. Incest. I think some child abuse as well. It's a pretty heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's cover it all. Anything else? I'm trying. I don't even want to. Let me just poverty in general. Yeah. Yeah.

And alcohol, substance abuse. And just, and graphic violence. So it's pretty violent. Again, this movie is called bruise. It's quite a bit of bruising, quite a bit of bleeding. And we're going to get into it. Having explained to people already, what a feel good time. This movie is good.

Can we get your elevator pitch for Roost? Yeah, so the elevator pitch is pretty straightforward. Do you guys remember the movie Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith? where the title has happiness in the name, but the film is actually just a relentless onslaught of sadness, then capped off with the happy ending. Bruce does that only without the happy ending, and if it's all kind of MMA-related.

That's a pretty good sell. I like that. I don't remember how well this movie did. I don't think if we got streaming numbers for this. Casey, what was your first impression when you were finished with the movie? What was your first thought when you were done? When you made it through. Well, much like Hallie Berry's character, Jackie Justice, I am also bruised right now.

I have a nice lower- Wow. You're a method. You might be the world's first method podcaster. Yeah. I wanted to feel what Jackie Justice is feeling. But no, actually, I do not because the thing she goes through in this movie are so freaking horrible. This movie is, it is. It's kind of like trauma porn.

It was just like, oh, like, what horrible things can we put on one character and then throw in some cage fighting? That's what it was. Yes, this movie opens up with, well, a couple of important things. First, the first two people we actually see are professional fighters, Gina Crono and Julie Kedzi, who hardcore M.A. fans will remember were in the first ever televised women's M.A. Shout out to Elite X-C. So that was a big deal. We then get a montage of other. Also, awesome.

That was that event was the first MMA event I ever worked on. That was a mile. That was the first league. Even, I built the, me and two other editors. We built the countdown show for that. So we shot all the footage of Gina when she was just this young Muay Thai prospect out of Vegas. And where were you? on fight night, would you have been around Cage, Cage side?

I wasn't there for Fight Night. I wasn't there for Fight Night. But I worked on all the promotional materials and did, like, shot interviews and everything of that, yeah. So, yeah, so it was, yeah, it was kind of weird, full circle, which. You're canonically in this movie. Like, you are in the bruised universe. Yeah, you're not on screen, but you are somewhere because you were involved.

Yeah, you are in the Bruce, you know, part of the Bruise expanded universe. Again, as shown by the bruise on your face. So we see that, we see a bunch of clips of other big moments. in women's MMA. And then we see, we get our introduction to Jackie Justice, who unfortunately is seen

running away, kind of pulling a Chelsea Chandler in the movie, but actually running all the way out of a cage as she is in the middle of a heated cage, right? It's quite traumatic.

And then we fast forward and we catch up with her a few years later. She is unemployed living with her male. Oh, sorry. She's not unemployed. What did we actually becomes? Jed, what happens?

What's the first horrible thing we see happen? And then Casey, I want you. to give us the rest of of that four Jackie's terrible day. Jed, what's our first thing

to see of? She is cleaning apartment, a house, I guess, not really an apartment, a townhome, and nothing terrible

about that. It's an honorable profession. But then while she is changing in this home to swap out of her work,

gear or whatever, the teenage-ish-aged son takes some photos of her in a state of undress and then won't delete them and or give it back. So she hits a child, which is fine, honestly, because he's being a real prick. But yeah, tough start to the movie. And I got to tell you, that's one of the less unsettling bad things that happened in this film.

So off to a rollicking start. Yeah, that's just the morning. Yeah, that's our morning. So now she is unemployed. Casey, as you watched the film, I think, just before Jen and I did, and you were so overwhelmed. You sent us a message. I don't know if you want to load that up of how rough the rest of that happened and then the rest of this day was. Yeah, I got, let me bring that message up because a lot happened.

This is on the first 15 minutes of the film. First 15 minutes and one day, our first day with this character. Yeah, one day of her life in the first 15 minutes. So, okay, the first 15 minutes. So, oh, wait, we have a lot of messages about this. I realized. Okay, so after she does that, she catches them, she smashes the phone. She gets home.

So she goes home. And then we don't get introductions to characters, but we assume this is her boyfriend. And she gets home. My boyfriend already kind of found out about it. Verbly abuses her. They get in a giant fight. The Jackie Justice says the great line. Oh, was it?

You're a part-time limo driver, but a full-time loser. So they're very mean to each other. Then they have some wild, angry sex in the kitchen. So this just kind of comes out of nowhere. Then later that evening, wait, when does she start spraying the alcohol into her mouth? I think that's when she gets home from the, I believe she does that before she fights. Oh, is that before? Oh, the start of the fight because she was asleep when she arrives.

Yeah, that's what it is. So before that, apparently she's alcohol. like a secret alcoholic who's been pouring liquor, whiskey into empty bottles of house cleaner, sprays it in her mouth and hides it under the sink cleverly. Who among us has it come back? That's going to come back. Sure. Then the boyfriend goes, you know what?

We had some great angry sex. Let's go to an underground cage fight. I'm not going to tell you, though, but we're going to show up at an underground cage fight, which I don't know. I've been working in this industry almost 20 years. I still have not come across these underground fights. But when she gets there, the wonderful MMA fighter and grappler Gabby Garcia is playing Werewolf, I think Werewolf?

Werewolf, correct. Well, Whirliff. And then we proceed to watch Werewolf murder a woman with her bare hands. Then a Russian gangster decides to mock Jackie Justice like, hey, why don't you fight her in a very bad, thick Russian accent? She refuses, they make fun of her. Jackie Justice tries to leave. but then werewolf Gabby Garcia attacks her. Then Jackie Justice grabs a jar.

There's just a Mason jar right there. Slams it on Gabby Garcia's head. She falls down. Gabby Garcia, oh, no, she doesn't fall down. Jackie Justice then shows off her immaculate grappling skills and goes for a single leg X takedown, which is the first really good grappling we've seen in actually all the MM. As far as like leg attacks and all the MMA movies so far,

it's pretty slick. It was slick. I was like, oh, cool. But there's a lot of broken glass on the ground, too, so I don't know how strategic this was. But takes her down and then proceeds to headbutt werewolf into, I guess, a coma. Then they drag her out, they get into their car.

Then we meet another character named Immaculant, who turns out is the movie version of the Invicta FC promoter. So I guess we find out that Invicta FC, the promoter was there. Yeah. And then... Casey, let me pause there for it. Oh, yeah, go. And this day is not over.

This day is not over, by the way. This day is not over. Yeah, so Immaculate played by John Wick. Well, a lot of people will know him from John Wick. Shemir Anderson, from John Wick 4. Some of other things as well, of course, just thinking of a big movie everyone would have seen. Yes, there is no Shannon Knapp in this universe.

There is Invicta, because you guys can see. Casey is wearing his Invicta gear. And Invicta is kind of the gold work. We can't say there's no Shannon Knapp. She's just not in charge. This is true. Perhaps this is a world where Shannat has taken more of a hands-off approach and hired this entrepreneur and young man, Immaculate, who did 15 years in prison for murder. We find out he was part of a, he got caught up in the gang life. You know, sometimes you got to kill someone.

I forgot that part. He paid his debt to society. He did 15 hundred years in the slimmer. And now he is really overqualified at this point, I think, to run an ever-made promotion. So it is, yes, Invicta is run by immaculate. That's the only name we get for him. And yes, he decides to, he sees Jackie Justice and says, hey, she used to fight the UFC. Maybe we bring her back in the fold here. So Jackie Justice, who's now retired, after kind of murdering a woman gets off, kind of offered a

contract to fight and evicta FC. So that's like, that's good, I guess. She's back. I'm back, baby. So the day could end on a high note, maybe. They travel home. Then it starts Storm and is raining very hard now in Newark, New Jersey. And then at their home is Jackie's mom, who maybe she hasn't seen it in a while. And Jackie's mom is there to reveal the news that, hey, Jackie, here is your long-lost six-seven-year-old son who just witnessed his baby,

his daddy get murdered. And now he won't talk about it. And yeah, and here you go. And this is your first day of Jackie Justice. Yeah. And it should be noted. Not really not long lost, knowingly abandoned. We should say. No, yeah. Jackie.

Which you kind of find out through the story. For whatever reason, was not, and she did not feel she was in a position to raise this child and essentially left it with the father and said, here you go. You're a single father now. So it's not a great first impression of Jackie Justice and her life.

It's not a lot of fun. And Jed, I think that's kind of a theme of this film, not a lot of fun. Is that, I don't, I feel like you just have a great time. Zero fun. Zero fun, sir. Like, there is nothing, nothing enjoyable about this film. I will obviously get into our ratings at the end of this.

I think you'll kind of understand where I'm coming from as we process this. But under no circumstances, do you fire this movie up? because you just got a couple hours to kill it'll be a good little happy time waster with my significant other on a Friday night that's not what this is about so don't head into it thinking it's that way

yeah it's rough it's rough man and we are I am not we understand the life of every fighter is tough they're telling the story here they're telling they're trying to tell kind of a rocky type story story and so they guess they got it they got to sink it

you really sink in the depths this is Hallie Barry's directorial debut we've all kind of agreed that she seemed to want to throw in as much tough as she directed as if she would never direct another movie. She threw everything in this movie. So we got again to some of the storylines. Before we do, I mean, we've already touched upon many.

Before we do. Joy in this film. Yeah, this is back-to-back movies, by the way. You know, we just did, we just did Misforteco Mundo, the Jose Aldo biopic. And our biggest complaint was, where is the joy in this film? Where is the Joseph, the smiling,

jovial Jose Aldo that we all know and love nowhere to be seen. So this is back-to-back movies where we've been kind of like, man, I just, isn't it? We always say, MMA is supposed to be fun. And you do not see any of that in these two movies that we have reviewed. Most Forchicamundo is like, it's like a jackass movie compared to this as far as as levity and humor. Like this is, this is like the zone of interest. There's nothing happy about this film.

I mean, it's not of interest. A very critically acclaimed movie, so maybe not a terrible comparison. You can be a good movie that's not unhappy, and I'm not telling you what my score is yet. We'll do our first at the end. But this movie is deeply unhappy. Like, it is a deeply unhappy film. Let's get to the positive thing. Punishingly unhappy.

Yeah. Trauma porn really is not wrong. It's not a wrong way to describe this film. Let's get to the positive first, then. Let's start with that. It sort of leads into our first question that we ask every week on this show. How much MMA is this movie? And we like to evaluate based on a white belt to black belt scale.

And I don't know if we've had a black belt martial arts film yet. We thought that the Josie Aldo movie would be a very obvious black belt pick. It wasn't. There wasn't a lot of fighting. Didn't we give it like a blue? I don't know where we said. I'll agree on it, but none of us gave it black. I don't even know if we went brown belt.

I think, I think we hit. Which is, again, purple was the highest I think we hit, yeah. Which is strange, considering it's a movie about one of the greatest M.A. fighters of all time that should have been an automatic black belt. This movie, again, obviously was worked in conjunction with the U.S.C. With Invicta, it's about a woman trying to get back into M.A. fighting. You would think that's a black belt movie. There's really only one fight in the movie.

And so I think we've all fallen short of that. So it's a great fight. We'll get to that. We've not all fallen short of it. I think this is a clear black belt film. Oh, you did give it a black belt. Okay. Yeah, I gave it a clear.

I don't know if you mentioned this. This is the second time we recorded this podcast. We already had this conversation. Yeah, no, I think this is a very clear black belt film to me. I understand the argument that, you know, it's a character-centered piece and not like a MMA-centered piece in some ways. And I get that. but I think that both in form and function,

this movie is intrinsically MMA. The lead character is an MMA fighter. The plot is directed by her fighting in MMA, all that specifically. And then also just functionally, this is an unflinching look at kind of some of the seedier, unfortunate aspects of MMA,

be it coaches and their relationships with fighters and grooming straight up as a thing. the managerial relationship between fighters, the fact that fighters don't make a lot of money and have to work other jobs, and that if they don't become wildly successful, then suddenly you are cleaning houses for some petulant 14-year-old who's sexually assaulting you. These are actual pieces of the MMA atmosphere in real life. And I think that this is a very good, deep look into that aspect of the sport, as well as being just on its face about MMA. To me, this is a Black Belt MMA movie. Casey, I think you and I are more, like, we're close.

I think we both said brown belt, four or five stripes. Like, it's the father's close. I just wanted more. I personally wanted more fights, which shouldn't be the definition of a martial arts movie, by the way, because Joseph Aldo movie technically has like three or four or five, like, fights in it, like two or three sanctioned ones. They're not very long, but you do see a bit of, and that's less. Yeah, and that's probably less sanctioned fights in the month.

Less of an amendment. Yeah. And that's less of any movement. This one has some training, a lot of good training stuff. Technique talk. There's like technique talk. There's attempts to bring people into the world of training and preparing and actual fighting. But we kind of agree.

Casey, what was your argument for like White Falls just kind of just short of being a black belt? I want to give it. I really do want to give a black belt. I mean, I still think I'm going to give it like a brown belt, like a four-stripe brown belt. But everything, Jets said, this does show a lot of the more that, I guess, the Cedar side of prize fight. Essentially, there's no money, there's no real money into the sport. The idea of you being brought in to build up another fighter, which I, actually, I do, actually, that was probably, I wish I, I wish they kind of hit that point more on the promotional

side of it. But the reason I did like it a lot in MMA aspects is like they did actually show all aspects of MMA. They showed her wrestling. They showed her doing a lot of groundwork, a lot of training montages. Some of the training montages were kind of silly, but a lot of it was good. They were like her just working of a grappling dummy,

working positions, things like that. Things that I think that probably the average viewer might find kind of silly or boring, but for me, I was like, oh, that's cool. That's what people actually do in the gym. So I did like all that stuff. I guess, why can I give it a black bow? I know, I, there were.

I want more fights. I just wanted, I would have loved if they put in one more actual fight. I think one more fight before. Here's my counter to that, okay. Yeah. Sure. This movie has more fight scene in it than any other MMA movie probably. If you combined all the pieces, because the last 30 minutes, the entire third act is functionally a 25-minute fight.

You get all of that. Like, I haven't done the math, but I'm confident if you chopped up the number of fight scenes in Masforcika Mundo or. or the 18 times they replayed Dalton killing Jay Huron and Roadhouse, that it still doesn't add up to the same time that you get in the Invicta finale fight. Because that is like straight up, if the rest of the movie was trash and had nothing to do with MMA, this would be a black belt movie for me because of the third act. Like just that alone is enough to be like, yeah, this is a deeply MMA movie.

Let's get to the fight. The fight, so again, she fights Luce C. Lucia Chavez, aka Lady Killer, played by Valentina Shepchenko. Why they made her from Argentina? I guess just because she speaks Spanish, very confusing. I don't know why, but more power to. And she barely speaks Spanish in the film, so it's not even like, they took advantage of it. Peru.

She could have been from Peru. Why even switched to Argentina? Valentina Shofchenko actually lives and trained in Peru. She does a life in Peru. And they said, Argentina, why not make her Russian? Because when she speaks in English, she has her clear, her Guise accent. They didn't change Keith Peterson's accent. No, he got to be Keith Peterson in the rap.

Pete Peterson. I don't know. I sensed a little bit. I think he tried to go British a little bit. No, Keith, yes. Well, Keith Peterson's in there. So yes, this final fight, we all agreed pretty damn great. As Jed pointed out, there's more MMA in this one fight than all the other movies we've

seen combined. It's a legit 25 minute, like, MMA fight. They cut it a little bit. But other than that, it's really well done. you guys mentioned the reality of may we we are told she makes 10k to show and 10k to win that is Jackie justice which is I think for even an invicta title fight that's pretty low I would like to think she would but she has no leverage either she hasn't fought as far as we know in the movie she hasn't fought for something like four five years four five years yeah so because we learned

that she she stopped after of course that embarrassing performance which was motivated by her having a child and she says like oh I I ran away not just from the fight I ran away from being Playing the embarrassing performance? Yeah, we did at the beginning. She literally exits the cage, yes, and that is her first. She is a 10-0 fighter who literally her first loss comes via TKO exiting the cage or disqualification. I'm not sure you're hopping with face. We also see this whole running out of the cage.

Don't we see it from like her point of view? We see it from her point of view. Yeah. She jumps the cage wall and is down and, you know. Her manager is screaming at her, her manager slash boyfriend screaming at her. What are you doing? What are you doing? Da-da.

And then, yeah, she hasn't. fought since and then we signed as she has a son five or six years later so that's how we know she hasn't fought in five years years and it's just thrown into it so she had a son before that fight gave up she had a son before that fight yeah gave up her son or let her let the baby daddy raise the son yes and then objectively a correct decision by the way like i know we're going to knock on it but like she has a substance abuse problem and is a pro fighter living with an abusive human beings. We don't know, we don't know that she had, we don't know that she had the substance abuse problem at that time.

And also she, I think we're to understand she wasn't with the manager as a partner at that time either. And then I think later they become involved. Either way, he was a cop in Florida and seems like his life, based on the one video we saw, actually was together. So not a bad call on her part. I disagree. I think she could have maybe sacrificed a little bit and tried to,

be a mom. I agree. People should be better, but if you're not going to be better, that was a correct decision to make. Maybe so. Well, I don't know. We'll see because she certainly regrets it. And I also a little confused. So she got pregnant, had a kid, recovered from having a child. So I'm assuming she was out for like a year and a half. Probably. Yes. And then she made her UFC debut? Again, we don't know for today. Oh, yeah. My understanding is that she had fought the UFC multiple times. That is my, but they don't make it clear. They don't make, they just say she's 10 and oh. They don't say she's like 10 and oh. Okay. They just say she's 10 and no. My understanding, but they did say she got a big jump up in competition, right? Sure. Yeah, they, yeah.

Because they say the manager like screwed it up her career or something. Okay, I was trying. You threw her under a fight she wasn't prepared for. So anyway, yes, there's some of that in there. But either way, somehow after five years, she still has enough of a name to get this title shot. We don't know how old she's in the movie. My guess is maybe mid to, sorry, late 30s, late 30s, early 40s. Because Halle Bear in Real Life when she did this movie, I think, was 53 or 54 years old. And she looks fantastic. She's doing most of her own stunts, we should say, as far as we know.

I heard she did all her own stunts. So there is a stunt double credited. Shout out to Anisha Gibbs in the credits. Shout out to the fight team as well. Eric Brown, who did it, worked on John Wick, one of the John Wick guys, as well as William Cote, Bernadette Couture, and Noah Schultz. I just got to shout all those people out because the fight looks fantastic. It is a great, again, we get a five-round fight, all the drama. You kind of, almost for a moment, I think what makes so great is you kind of forget,

it lets you forget all the horror that you have seen for the past, oh, hour, and 45 minutes before this fight. And he used to seem good old-fashioned MMA. Jackie is presented as a grappler. It's made very clear. She's not a great striker. She doesn't look like a great striker in the movie, to be honest. So with apologies to Hallie Perry, the striking isn't great. Maybe it's on purpose.

But the grappling, really nice, really nice. We see a lot of that in the movie. We see a lot of that in this fight. It's kind of how she survives. It's kind of how she turns the tables on Valentin Strachenko, aka Lady Killer, and ends up, we get the rocky ending. She does end up losing a split decision, but there's somewhat of a positive turn around her life. And again, I can't say enough. This is so much better than the end of Roadhouse.

This is so much better than anything we saw in the Jose Aola movie. It's about as good as some of the fight scenes in Fight Valley. I don't want to quite put it above. the climactic fight scene between Susie Selleck and Chris Seidvore, Chris Sele just gets her ass handed to her after her whole movie of appropriate. Anyway, but no, in all serious, great, great stuff. What stood out for you guys from this fight scene, Jed? It's just, sorry, we're talking about the final fight scene.

The fight, just the final fight. Not the final fight scene from Fight Valley. If you want to talk about that, I'm here all day, but specifically the one from Bruised. Yeah, okay. this is the best fight scene that's ever been in an MMA movie. I'm pretty sure. Like, and I'm sure Casey will bring this up because he's a little more focused on some of the parts of that.

It is not, this is not what a real fight looks like. This is a movie fight. And movie fights and real fights are not the same. They are, because real fighting is too cinematic. It's the same way that all sports don't translate really to, to film in the same way,

because it doesn't register, it doesn't get over. This is as good of a movie MMA fight as I think you can have. You can nitpick some of the technical stuff, and some of it's obviously like a little too cool that that could never happen. But you get like a pretty clear look of here's the striking, here's the grappling here, different aspects of all of this. Here's an ebb and a flow of a fight. She starts off down.

She kind of overcomes. She starts getting her game going. Valentina comes back. or Lady Killer comes back. You're getting cornering between the rounds of saying, like a very real thing of, why is this woman not going away at this point, having a fighter reckon with that?

You're getting all aspects of like a high-level mixed martial arts fight conveyed accurately and appropriately given the medium. I genuinely think it's the best MMA fight I have ever seen in a movie. And like I said, that's why I would give this movie a black belt for nothing else other than this final scene. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

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While Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. explore the new Peloton cross-training tread plus at OnePeloton.C.A. It really is that good. I mean, you're not, like, your Black Belt awarding to this film is completely justified. Just based on, again, some of the stuff before and how well this is done. Let me add some more details, Casey, before I throw to you. We got Eve Edwards and Julie Kedzee on commentary.

Shout to them. They're doing very solid movie commentary where it's both, you know, they're trying to sell the passion of what's happening, and they're acting kind of as exposition for the viewer, especially for viewers who, you know, maybe just flicking on Netflix. They like Halle Berry, maybe not super familiar with MMA. So I thought they did an excellent job of that. And as you said, Keith Peterson's in there as well. Nice little cameo for him.

Antonina, Antonina, Antonina, Shepchenko, and the rest of Valentina's team are shown. They're in the corner. So it's a really great MMA scene. It feels so authentic. It feels so real. Other than kind of classic having to very much whack out the crowd, it's just kind of how you have to do these things. They did it for the Josie Aldo movie too And that was supposed to be in a venue that had like 55,000 people

So it's just how these things go But Casey, what did you like? What really stood up for you in the final? The main thing, just reiterate everything Jed said, But the main thing I liked about it is that they gave it time. They didn't like montage the fight scene. I mean, montage the final fight. They actually told,

And this is kind of the beauty in MMA, at least of five-round fights. That's the closest that MMA fans get to kind of the big boxing kind of ups and downs, ebbs and flows in a boxing match. And five round fights, every once in a while, we do get that. And that's what they try to basically, they told kind of a boxing story in an MMA match, which each round, no, round one, round two, you kind of, no, feel the fight, the fight go up and down. And, no, and they did a good job with, like, Julie and Eve's, Eve, kind of continued

the storyline, you know, she should go to the ground, you know, kind of, all that stuff. So, yeah, I just really enjoyed the fact that they gave it room to breathe. and I wasn't expecting that because usually these films just kind of mish-mashed into everything one giant round for these films. My big kind of takeaway,

criticism, and like Jed said, this is pretty much all action films, all combat sports action films. Every punch is pretty much a knockout punch, but they treat it like a jab. Like every time they get hit, it's like, oh, that's a concussion.

You should be down. You're done. But they're like, you know, like everyone's got like, Nick Diaz type of chin in these worlds. But those are movies. And yeah, so outside of that, though, I liked it. I liked it.

Yeah, I think you guys have explained why this is a great, this is great movie MMA. This is the best movie MMA that has maybe been put on film ever. I like what you said, Casey, but they gave the fight room to breathe because I think that's our, what our major gripe with maybe the rest of this movie is just the script is not great. the editing is kind of a mess. And if that had been, if they had given some of these other moments and storylines more room to breathe and some of the other ones less room to breathe,

Fred frankly. One quick thing, the final fight scene. One thing I got, I hated about the, um, auto movie in the, the final fight scene is like,

oh, the, like, they decided to do every zoom and camera twirl in that movie. Horrible. In this movie, everything's basically very, the edits and camera moves don't get you dizzy,

basically. No, you're, You understand what's going on, even though there's fast editing and sharp cuts and stuff like that and like zooms and stuff. Everything feels like you're in the fight. So credit to Hallie Berry for directing the final fight scene very well. Because a lot of these, you know, I mean, like they just become this big mash of just edits and you just get lost in it. So I never felt lost when I was watching the final scene, the final fight scene.

Yeah. And again, I don't know how much she used her stunt double, if at all. Again, I assumed there was at least some. But based on it, like you said, the way they filmed it, it's a lot of long shots. Like, you really, you feel like a tally in there. You definitely feel like Italian there. If they fooled us with some movie magic, I'm impressed. But I tell you, it really, I think, like, it really felt like Italian there.

Yeah, now that I think about it, I was never taken out of the scene going, oh, that's a stunt double. Yeah, now that I think about it, I'm sure there was a stunt double had to be, you know, for some of the throws, I'm sure. I'm sure, you just, you know, you just don't want to do that to your main character. you have to get hurt. But no, they did a good job. Yeah. Watch the final 30 minutes in the movie, people. You skip the first.

No, you need the context. You need her struggle. And hats off to Valentina Shachinko as well, who again has to learn the movie. Yes, Valentina. Jed, you've, I know you've done a little bit of that kind of training, and that's not easy for someone who's a real life, like, killer, to kind of dial it back and also, you know,

perform in a way that works for the cameras. It's just way different. So I've taken a movie fighting class. We did one here at our gym. Because, you know, Atlanta, the hub of filmmaking or whatever. And it's just like it is over the top theatrical performative. It's not the same. And so they are very different skills.

But kind of one of my big honest takeaways from this is like, oh, Valencia Chivchenko's good at this. Like, she doesn't get a lot of speaking parts. And I would not say that she like thrives in line delivery. because I don't know, it's a different set of skills. But she is athletic enough. And I would venture to say that her kind of background in dancing, which is a lot more like dance choreography is a lot closer to fight choreography than just like a fighting background, frankly.

I would say that she comes across very believable in what she is doing in a way that I don't think others have nearly the success with. So, like, the thing that jumps to mind is they wanted to make Rond Rousey a star. And so they put her in a fast movie. And I get the core concept. Rond Rousey is bad at all of this. And so none of it worked. Whereas, like, I can understand putting Valentina Shepchenko as, like, the big bad, or not the big

bad, but like the medium bad, who doesn't have that many lines, but just gets to be the physical counter to, you know, Michelle Rodriguez or whatever. That makes sense. And I honestly watching it, it's like, oh, Shevchenko should get more chances to do that. I think she could carve out some set of this kind of space for herself if she got that opportunity because she was good in that part of it. Yeah, and even regarding like just the, for the most part,

I didn't just feel like she was being Valentina Shvchenko, if that makes sense. Like, anyway, she doesn't have a lot of lines. She doesn't have a lot of acting to do in this movie outside of the fight. But there's moments where she has to be sort of a more healish, arrogance, evil, sort of, not evil, but definitely heelish, aggressive character. And we saw a glimpse to that. And I'm kind of like, okay, cool. Like, she's at least trying not to just do herself. She's not just Connor in Roadhouse doing Connor to like 150% of Connor or 200% of Connor.

She did, I think she's a better actor in the one I saw here than Connor Greger was in Roadhouse. But maybe that's not a very high bar. Maybe I'm picking some little hanging fruit here. But yeah, so I thought she did fine. Connor could have moments I'm not sure He is not a good physical actor But he could have moments of line delivery It's tough

Yeah This fight scene also had my favorite Move in the movie Imagine if they casted Valentina As to Heavy in Roadhouse Just just saying It would have been Hey listen

Roadhouse 2 As of this recording We have heard that a Roadhouse 2 Has been greenlit And I don't I think you know You're gonna bring back Connor Obviously

I think it's got to bring in More MMA power But definitely bring in a woman fighter you can do a hell of a lot worse than valentina valentina would have actually made sense when roadhouse was going to be ronda rousey's thing oh that actually valentina actually would have made sense as like yeah the opposite to her there um i want to say yes this spicing had my favorite move of the movie which was valentina doing an ali mohammed ali foot shuffle and then anderson silver front kicking

halliberry in the face completely unrealistic uh but hilarious it's incredible it's so good It's so good. And it works. And you know what? Jackie Justice just eats it, keeps on going, keeps on grinding. So that was a group.

I don't know if any moves in the movie, anything that happened in training, maybe jumped out at you guys at all. So one of two things jumped out of me. The first one is the only nitpick I'll have about this sort of stuff. Ostensibly, she is a grappler. Like that is a thing that they say point blank,

you're a grappler. And then like they drive that point home. and it is true because she's a bad striker, and they also drive that point home both verbally and like in what they show you. At one point, she gets taught. We haven't really talked about Budakon or whatever, but Budakon teaches her literally day one mount escapes in training. It's like she already knows this.

I would hope so. So that's like the only like fight related scene that I'll nitpick because it is so absurdist to me. See, I, okay, so I didn't have that problem. One, I've never trained. Well, I'm freefully at some gym for like a month maybe. So I've never properly trained as you two gentlemen have. And doesn't, she's been out of the game for a long time.

And sometimes, you know, you've got to bring it back to the fundamentals, right? You don't think, you don't think Habib, you know, the Habib is, they don't take some time. Like, Habib, here's how you do a single-leg take-down. You don't think he needs to, you know, just to humble him, to ground him up. I do not believe they talk him through the steps of it. that's not a thing I don't I don't think so

I could be wrong that one that was like the only time where and I know Casey with other films you have kind of said that sort of took you out of the movie watching like some of the bad technique and stuff that was the only time where I was like

this is ridiculous and I got sort of set back from the movie which frankly given how sad the movie is was kind of nice to take a break from a moment Oh, in the training montage, there was one part, all of, like, they're like by the pier or by the port or something. And they're doing, like, doing like, she had a Bulgarian bag, which I thought was, like, extremely accurate. And but then off the one scene, she's in the freaking river or in the ocean.

I was like, that doesn't look sanitary. I was just like, you remember that she was just, like, she's jogging. And then they have her just in the water, like treading water. And it's like, I know Newark has pools. They got to have, you don't need to jump in the river to do this. Got to get tough. Yeah, you got to be tough. Yeah, I know that senior you're talking about.

I took that as more just, that was more of, I think, more educating the audience. But yeah, that she was saying very. This is very clearly educating the audience. Yeah. That's why it's like, it's stuck out to me. It's like, here's a, this is for you, viewer. And not like a here's a natural part. of the flow of what's occurred here.

I didn't miss the fact that there wasn't, because I've never seen, outside of the highest level fighters, say like a John Jones or even a Connor, Jackie Justice seemed to be getting private training for her entire fight. And I've just never seen that for an MMA fighter. You've, MMA, like, it's, we always kind of joke it's a team sport because you do train as a team.

And I, so that was, I think, that's why everything kind of felt like this was a, boxing film except that they were happy they had grappling because the training felt very boxing even the coach had a whistle i've never seen a whistle in a mma gym i've never i just never seen a whistle yeah listen we should make it you should make it clear so this movie was written by i want to say it's her first movie as well michelle rosenfarb who had been spending a decade trying to get essentially what was the project that would become bruised off of the ground it was originally a boxing film sent around an Irish woman

who was to be played by Blake Lively. So yes, if you guys see the DNA of boxing this film, it is essentially a boxing film now that was later dressed up with MMA. When they recast with Hallie Berry, of course it changed the angle of it. Blake Lively would have played an up-and-comer as opposed to Hallie Berry,

who's someone trying to come back into the fight game. So, yeah, there was some differences here. And I think Michelle Rosenfarb acquaint herself pretty well, but I think we've said it already, her and Hallie Barry definitely. stuffed this movie with plots. It's got a lot of plot. You're right.

We should talk about Buda Khan, played by the lovely and talented. I keep forgetting her name. I don't know why I'm doing this to myself. What is wrong with me? Sheila Atteam. Sorry, I apologize to Sheila, She is fantastic in it. She looks great.

She's a very well-trained actor. This is a lot of great. There's a lot of Broadway-trained actors in this film. her Hallie Barry's mom is played by Adrian Lennox She's she's a Tony Award winner There's a lot of acting in here But just to focus again, sorry on Buda Khan This is what we talked about before

Where she gets into a relationship with Halliberry They're very close working relationship And then they get it on They get it on for lack of a more mature term We are now two for two And they get it on at a point in the movie Where Jackie Justice has a lot of emotional She's very vulnerable.

He's very vulnerable. This is not a time when a coach, when a mentor figure should be propositioning their student. There's probably never a good time for it. This is really, really not a good time. It does lead to further conflict between the characters with Jackie wisely stepping away from the situation and saying, listen, I have a fight coming up. This isn't a good idea.

And Buda Khan being very hurt by it and then going on a bender and becoming unable to to go to her fight. So it's messy as hell, but I think we said, like, it's, it was kind of cool that they showed this very unfortunate side of the combat sports game. And that's the problem with this movie. The movie could have been about that. It could have been about that. It could have been just about a single mom trying to fight. It could have been about her being an incest survivor. You know, it could have been. By the way, we keep saying that. We should explain. There's another traumatizing storyline where Hallie Barry, when she's having a fight with her mother,

says, wow, how could you have just looked away while when I was a little girl, our uncles and men you were having over were molesting me. We're sexually assaulting me. So that's in there. And it's not really cool. They just kind of honestly throw it in, too. It's like, what if?

Yeah. What a move is put a little dash of this horror in here as well. It's terrible. Yeah, it's tough, man. It's real tough. And yeah, and like you said, if they had picked some like that could have easily been removed taken away and yes let's concentrate more on this there's so little room for the coach storyline to breathe that when buddicon shows up later

she's like badly beaten up and there's she just says oh i was in the hospital it's a long story and i'm like i kind of want to see that story bruise two like i don't know is that something you can just hand the adventures of budicotan like they just hand waved that away like oh yeah something happened to Buda Khan. It was bad. I'm like, you could have shown us that and not shown us some, not thrown in two other, uh, trauma stories, including the son, by the way, like we said, he witnessed his father's murder, which again is not, no, that doesn't go anywhere. He's so traumatized. He can't talk throughout the movie. Uh, it is, man, it is just, it's, it's rough.

And the, all the talents in it, all the cast is doing their, their best, God bless him. They're doing with the camera. All the acting is quite good. We talked, like, we talked about it. the first time I recorded this, the wonderful Stephen McKinley Henderson, again, very decorated theater actor, television actor, most people will now will know him from the first Dune film. He doesn't get anything to do in this movie.

He is pushed into a secondary role because they have the Boudicom character. And then he's only allowed to step forward to the end because he's not available. And even then, the final scenes is just him going like, get her, Jackie, get her, lock her up, lock her up. Like, this is an award-winning Broadway actor and they give him nothing to do.

And he brings great presence to every scene. he's in and they just don't use him. So, man, there's just some decisions made in this film that there's a much better film in here. I know, I feel like we've said that a lot. Well, we didn't say that with Fight Valley because that movie was perfect. But or you guys said there was no saving it, whatever. I mean, you know, agree to disagree.

Same, same idea. But this one and that shows you all the movie, man, it really feels so obvious how we could have made them better. It's so frustrating. Because this movie is, what, like two hours, 10 minutes or something? Over two hours, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, 18 is its official one time. Oh, my God. Yeah. So imagine this was 90 minutes and cut out about, like, get rid of the Boudicong character. Great actress, but that character just was not,

just get rid of that, get rid of it completely. Cut out a couple of the trauma lines, trauma storylines. And then you might have something much better because this film wasn't critically well reviewed either by outside. Right.

Very average, yeah. Yeah, very average. And that's what kind of, that's just, I guess that's what's most disappointing by this movie is like, I think for all of us, we saw something there. They had the talent. They had the budget. They had the, um, the good cinematography. They had the locations. But then they just wanted too much.

And we need less. We just need less. It was just, it was a word thing to say out loud, but this movie was too much and it needed less and it would have been a lot more if it was. Even the stuff with her son, Manny, like, and I think they both do a great job. Like, some of that stuff landed. Like I did enjoy it, but there wasn't enough happiness. Like, I wanted to see some happiness for them. Even the end of the movie is not really happy ending.

We want to remind people she essentially made 10K for an MMA flight. And the movie ends of them literally being homeless and having nowhere to go. Yes, but they're smiling. She's like, she's like, I don't know where we're going to go, manny. And I'm like, this is where you were at the beginning of the film. We're just going to find a place to live. Again, one example is so throughout the movie, they push this whole thing which is like, I'm big and you're little and Big protects little.

And it's these nicknames. So she's big, he's little. Those are the names that kind of try to sell. So at the end, when he finally speaks, he breaks his silence. He says, thank you, big. And it's supposed to be this big emotional moment. And it just doesn't land. If they had not done all that setup and just had him call her mom at the end,

I think I would have shed a tear. I cried pretty easily in movies. That would have got me. The thank you, big thing, did nothing. And again, there's just not enough moments where all their bonding is over trauma. There's not one scene where like, oh, they go to the park or something. and have a nice moment. No, everything is like seven.

There's a horribly sad scene where they're walking on the street and they hear the song that she knows that he shared with his father. It's just so on the nose. It's so sad. It's so sad. And I'm like, why? Why did you need more sadness here? It's tough.

We even had the little kid have to piss himself. Remember he pissed himself? Oh, God. Like, there was just like, that's why there was so much. There was the whole scene of the kid pissing himself. That brought back a lot of childhood. That brought back a lot of childhood. a trauma for me. I was a serial pants sweater. I didn't just see that when I'm watching my

MMA film. I kind of wish I hadn't put this on wax. But you know what? It's the internet. It lives forever. Wait, wait, wait. What we're going to go back to that after. I'm not talking about it. There's no time. There's no time. There's no time. So, uh, the big little thing, that was one of many standout quotes from the film. Guys, uh, what quotes from the movie? Well, first let's say, did they say the name in the movie? We have a dispute about this already. I said they, they kind of didn't, but they literally did. They absolutely said. They technically did.

They spiritually did not. Yes, thank you, Jed. I'll read the exact line after her fight with Valentina. Jackie goes home and sees her son and she's just like, I'm a little bruised up, but I'm good. She doesn't emphasize like tires. The way she just says is, I'm a little bruised up, but I'm good. So there's no emphasis on bruised. So it almost doesn't.

Are you saying? The issue is if she just said I'm a little bruised, I would say that it's 100% said. bruised up means that the title is said, but it's not like a bruised pause. It's not a bruised declarative end. So it is just forced in the middle of a line. And thus it is technically there. It's not spiritually the same as when they repeat roadhouse 800 times in the first 12 minutes of roadhouse. You guys know where the roadhouse is?

I'm heading to the roadhouse. It's 10 miles up the road to the roadhouse. Just head down Pike Valley. You turn it right. You're at the roadhouse. Yeah. But Fight Valley is Where's Fight Valley?

You've never been to Fight Valley? Don't go to Fight Valley. I'm like, wow. I can tell you're not from Fight Valley. Yeah, yeah. They said a lot. So this time, they somehow only say the word bruised once and they don't even emphasize it.

But Casey, you're satisfied with that? They said it. I was satisfied. Okay, no, I was disappointed, but also I didn't think we're going to get it. Was it the very final scene? It was really, pretty much. The third to last line in the film.

Yeah. Yeah, I wish you did look at the camera and wink, but, you know, what are you going to do? Yes. Again, give me some joy. Give me a laugh. Real quick, we're talking about joy. Did you guys watch the Iron Claw? No.

You didn't see the Iron Claw, okay? I haven't watched. I don't watch movies except for this podcast. Very disappointing. But the Iron Claw, I think when that's a movie. Honestly, a lot of similarity here. A lot. Yeah.

That's what I'm, that's what in mind. But the Iron Claw is a movie, obviously, based on the Von Erickson and everything. they actually had to make that story happier because the actual real story is too sad. And that's what this movie kind of hurts from. It's just too sad. And even Ivan, even Iron Claw, they gave it kind of a happy ending, even though it wasn't a happening, but you kind of felt happy at the end of the Iron Claw. This movie, I guess they were trying to do that with the whole, the kid talked, but they're still homeless. Thank you, big.

Yeah. trying to do, it just didn't hit. And the Iron Claw is a great movie. I highly recommend everyone to watch it. But a very sad movie. But a very sad movie. A casual Friday. Yeah.

But no, Iron Claw is incredibly sad. But they, but I didn't, it didn't feel like, it didn't feel like trauma porn like this movie was. It's such a fine line and bruise didn't, didn't hit it. I hadn't,

I did not consider the Iron Claw. Like I just hadn't thought about it in this context. But you bring up a really, good point, Casey, because I do think one of the fundamental failings like if I, you know, if I could change anything, it would be an editor and I would get rid of the entire Budacom plot.

There's just too much. That's the main one, yeah. And the film would still work if you just did that. But if I could kind of make two changes, and I hadn't really thought about this until you just kind of crystallized it in my head, because there is no levity,

there is no happiness, there is nothing to attach to. The sadness in Iron Claw is more substantive because you have moments of joy and happiness. And here's, I don't remember any of the character's names, here's high school musical dude who looks real weird, but he's with his wife. And here he is hanging out with his brothers. And there's the interpersonal connection here. And there's a positive moment, which can then show in contrast to yet another brother dying, because that movie is just a relentless onslaught of brothers dying. And so it is sadder.

Like I felt more sad watching Iron Claw, which, you know, like that's, that's what it is trying to evoke those emotions out of you. This one, I immediately was like, this is horrible. And then because I stayed in a constant state of everything happening is unfortunate. There was no like, oh, now when when she says, my, can't believe you, you know, mom let them rape me. That doesn't land in the same way that punch would land if I didn't see it coming because I've got my guard up like what other bad shit's about to happen here? And so it does and it's like, oh, here it is. Here's the next bad thing. There is no contrast of joy in it and the film

desperately needed that to land more effectively like you said, AK, the stuff at the end. That goes over better if there are happier moments in the middle somewhere. But because it is just tacked on the end, it doesn't it doesn't hit. Yeah, like how great would the scene have been like, you know, again, the one where they hear the song that the kid knows and makes them sad. If she had changed the radio or changed and then put on like a different song, I was like, oh, then there's something happy together and that's their song now. The boot, all the Budakon scenes, if instead of those, those scenes are her relating with her child in a way that is fun and interesting, this movie is a 10 times better. Like, honestly, instead of her going to the diner and talking about life with the character who kind of doesn't have a. payoff for server purpose.

It's just like, hey, you and me are going to go to the zoo today and hang out with the platypuses or whatever. Like, it would just be a substantially better film. Yeah, I got to say when they, when they started pushing the Boudiccan relationship with her and Jackie Justice, I was, as a viewer, I was actually really disappointed because I, like, like, like, Jed said, like I had my guard up. And I was like, oh, they're throwing more. Because then you knew when they started making out.

You know exactly what's going. You knew what's going to happen. It's like, no, I thought. thought this would be like, I don't know. There was something they went to the obvious because we all kind of felt it. I mean like, oh, but don't do it. And then they did do it. And it was just like, I think, yeah, it was just, you needed something else.

It's just a different movie. Yeah. That is a different movie shoehorned into this movie because, okay, I think you're the one who said it. You know, Halliberry just wanted to put it all on all out there. She had all of this and she wanted to get it all. And it just doesn't fit this movie as a more linear. successful film, if it is either about Buda Khan in that relationship or it's about Jackie Justice and her son in that relationship, it cannot be about both. Yeah. Again, we will say this sort of

relationship and that particular, the lesbian sex scene, was someone important to Hallie? She did mention an interview. She said she's very used to, of course, having love scenes that are filmed by male directors, so it's very empowering for her to sort of film her own love scene. So yes, whether that makes the scene work or not or enjoyable or not as debatable. But, you know, good for her. As we said, she wanted to throw a lot of stuff in. That was clearly, I think very, very clearly a Hallie Berry call. And listen, she's living her truth with this film. That's for sure. This is a Halliberry joint. Yeah. It's a good scene. It just doesn't, it's not in this movie. Not in this movie. Because there are too many things. Like getting rid of Boutrecon and just having Stephen

Wilkerson, is that his name right? Stephen McKinley Henderson. Yeah. Stephen McKinley Henderson. Yeah. Yeah, just having him be the coach and not even elevating his character much, like just doing the Budokin stuff. Or one inspirational speech. Give us one positive inspirational speech. Just one, just one sports movie thing. One speech and then the rest of the time she's hanging out with her son and they're developing a relationship. And so when he speaks to her, it is more meaningful as opposed to I'm still not sure why he speaks to her in the confines of the movie. because just prior to this, he stopped living with her because she was a bad parent. So it's, yeah, it has some real editing failures. Yeah.

I kind of wonder if they were to change Boudicons character has just like a training partner in the gym or something. I don't know. And then the Stephen McKinney was like, was the actual coach. He was the actual coach. And then you met this training partner who also is also going through these troubles too in life because she was a former addict to. I think they mentioned she was an addict, I think alcoholic.

And I don't know. It was just, yeah, yeah, it's just, once they threw that in, I was just, I think, yeah, I think it was just made the movie too much. And then it was just hard to go back from that. If you're going to stack the deck against the characters, you can only stack them so high

or you better be prepared to find a way to resolve all those things in a mostly satisfactory manner. And there's so many threads, like we said, by the end of this movie, all we know is just $10,000. in her pocket and four tax and no place no place to live and she still has she's still a single mom she tells a son who is just starting to come out of his shell thank goodness but it's it's not

enough optimism at the end consider it because they stacked the deck too high there's so much unresolved and i'm not saying it all has to be resolved at once it's not magically resolved in one day but you just don't even get a hint that some of this stuff is going to be dealt with properly it's it's rough it's rough to that's a rough thing to swallow down boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea.

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from the movie how quick. Yeah, yeah, we'll just touch upon it quickly. Jackie early on says, I think this is after she beats up werewolf or something. Oh, no, sorry, it's after she loses her job because the kid who she's, how she's cleaning for as a frigging pervert.

she says after she roughs them up she tells her manager slash boyfriend uh that was super necessary and it's not i don't love this because it was a reference to whatever the horridem os but all thing which it just happened i think the year before this movie but because that's the only yeah that's like the only mima line they kind of throw in there they don't get cute with it there's not like in between rounds valentina going like i'm not impressed by your performance or in like that they they threw in one line to let them know like hey we like m m mhm and we thought this line is really cool and it it fits the scene, it fits the movie, and that's it. They did not try and shoehorn more M-May dialogue in.

So it's the absence of it that I'm really appreciating here. I don't know if you guys got any good lines that you loved. My favorite line is just Eve Edwards in the final fight scene. He is, you know, he's commentating with Julie Kedzy. And at some point, I don't remember what round or whatever. He just says, revenge is a dish best served on the feet, which is just a terrific. terrific stupid line. Like, it's a terrific bad movie line.

And I like it a lot. Can you use that? Can I see you tweet that somewhere in the future? Like, there's a big knockout or something. At some point, look, every Alex Pereira fight is defined by that of, oh, you took me down. Revenge of the dish best served on the feet. That and you have to destroy the play. What is it? You have to kill the Playboys?

Kill the Playboys. Kill the Playboys. Annihilate the Playboys. Annihilate the Playboys. Anniilate the Playboys. One of those lines of movie is. Shout out of the Chazale Hado Bion. Casey, any big lines here?

My favorite line, because it's just such a writer. You can tell a writer wrote this in a coffee shop. They were like, yes. When Boudiccan is coaching Jackie Justice, and Boudickeh says, you have to level change. And if you don't mix it up, she will level you. So bad. That's good.

That's good. It's good advice. It's catchy. easy to remember. I like that. I was just like, wow. We're going to get to the review in a second.

First of, do we all agree if Jackie just is... Go ahead. We didn't talk about this at all. Hit me up. I don't know. I don't remember exactly the part of the film this happened in the middle of training montage.

There was a rendition of Hallelujah in the movie, remember? Yes. Why was that? This is when she's finally starting to turn. Things are kind. kind of starting to turn around. She's getting rid of almost all the alcohol.

I don't think she gets rid of the spray bottle, but she's like doing her best. She's pouring out all the bottles of alcohol. Her terrible, horrible boyfriend manager is kind of just like wandering the streets and I think catches up with some of his old buddies. I think we see Buda Khan as well. Like there's some,

they're kind of hinting like this is the part of the movie where we see her in earnest start becoming a fighter again. She's fighting back, Casey. She's retaking control. Unfortunately, that scene is followed by, again, six other scenes of just horrible, horrible, horrible stuff. So it doesn't really work. But again, that wreaks of first time directing Idis. Like, you know, Hallibor is I had this scene in mind.

Like, can we get Hallelujah? Can we get a version of Hallelujah in there? Like, this is going to be so powerful. But it just doesn't land that well with everything that happened before and whatever happens after. Yeah, it was just like, oh, this is too much. Yeah, I know. Too much. it's it you could see again we all have a I think a scene in our mind like man I would love to

take this song and like I'd do a montage of this and that's what she wanted and she got it and you know what myelish may bury do we all agree Jackie if she continued let's let's pretend she gets some more money and actually gets back on track she would be a title contender in the UFC she's again she's a bit up there in age she's a bit up there in age but I think she could title contender no but I do think she'd be you know top 15 top 25 based on what we know from the movie and sort of getting robbed out of a decision win over the Invicta champion. You scored it for Jackie.

Historically, I think Jackie, based on the edit, looks like she should have won that fight. But a couple of close rounds in there, not a robbery, I guess maybe, just because the round she lost were definitive, but it seemed like she probably won the fight. But, you know, Invicted champions have a track record of success in UFC. She functionally wasn't invict should or could have been an Invicted champion. A little older, so I'm not sure she'd actually fight for the title. But top 20, top 15, flyweight, for sure. Yeah, we should be clear.

It is she does fight for the flyweight title on this. She's definitely picking up some fight of the knights, I think. Maybe a performance bonus. It gets a slick submission in there. She's tapping somebody out. Casey? She clearly is UFC level. I would even say she's like maybe like a Lauren Murphy type of fighter.

That's a good comparison. Like hell of a chin, take a beating. But in the end, it was really her ground game that's going to lead her to success. And, you know, up there in age, I know Lauren Murphy has come back from some substance abuse problems in the past. She's mentioned. Very open about it. Yeah.

It's very open about it. Yeah. So, hey, man. Was bruised actually the Lauren Murphy story. If I was Lauren Murphy, I wish I could have at least been in this movie. Like, I wish I could have had a part in this movie and even some consulting. Because, yeah, she had a rocky road. She had a rocky road to become a world title challenge.

And it's a great. It's a great story. The Lauren Murphy story is great, too. Like, yeah, it's kind of weird. I just do a biopic of Lauren Murphy. And then Lauren Murphy just losing a title fight. I'm not sure Hallie Berry could play Lauren Murphy in a biography. Susie Selleck, though.

Susie Selleck. Yes. Yes. Hey, and Lauren Murphy and Halle Berry both lost fights to Lucia Chavez. The lady killer, yeah. I think we will also agree, though, that if she moved up to 135, she's just going to win the title. Not win the titles because Kayla's there now, but she probably, everyone gets to fight for the title. Hey, Kayla, maybe 135 yet, yeah.

That's true. She technically has not made 135 on the dot yet. But yeah, Jackie Justice, Halle Berry, Bravo, a great performance. And I think one of the better, I would pick her to beat up like Knox. I like there's a lot of, there's a lot of people on these other movies that she, she would clear out Fight Valley. I don't think I would pick her to beat up Knox. Knox went toe to toe with, Knox just went toe to toe with Dalton, who was the middleweight champion of the world. He never was. Hold on. That was overturned via harder. He's 12 seconds. No contest. No.

Let this be a murder. Be a murder. He was never, the, the, the people's champ. We do not recognize, we do not recognize him as the middleweight champ. Uncrowned champ and Knoxwood to toe to toe with him. I still rank him above the dead J. Heron. I'm just saying. Yeah.

He won the fight. Yes. J. Heiron was dead. Jayhiron lost the fight and the war. Guys. Or 18 months, he's out of the rankings. Okay.

Let's, uh, let's review this movie. Casey, I don't know if you want to put a fancy graphic on now or do you want us to, oh, we should review first. We sure review first. Yeah, yeah. Well, I have a graphic for how we rate all the movies. Of course, of course. Let's prepare guys.

Get your fists ready. Again, everyone, this is a, each of us has up to two fists, so it's a six-fist system. Casey, if we could get a drum roll, please here, and we'll show our. All right, drum roll. You will show our fists. We'll show our fists. Knuckle up, boys. Oh, Jed went with one.

Wow. I'm a little surprised. One for me as well. Casey, zero. So for our podcast listeners, one from Jed, one for me. Zero from Casey. I thought Casey was going to give one, and Jed, you were going to give zero. So Casey, first, why the zero?

I am an editor at heart. It's going to be a tough movie for you then. This movie need to be edited. It needed to be edited. You said it earlier, Kay, was she said director Titus or something? I don't know. First time directoritis. Yeah, first time directoritis.

And it really hurt. And she needed a editor that was going to be ruthless. And this movie needed a ruthless editor. And editors have to be ruthless. You got to, we always say you got to kill your babies a lot. And yeah, I know, I know Halliberry wanted to direct her own sex scene or whatever, but it had to go. And that was just, those are just too much for me, just too much. much. And, yeah. So in the end, and I kind of talked about this in the auto movie. I did not like how

they put the domestic violence kind of aspect in that movie, but really with no resolution or no real conversation on it. And this movie, they just, the way they just, the way she just dropped in the rape and the incest, it was just, no, I was just like, you can't do that. Sorry, you can't do that. It's just too much. And because of that, unfortunately, I had to give it no fist. But great effort. Like I said, watch the last act of the film. Just watch the, skip the first hour and a half, watch the last act.

And then I think the film is fine, but otherwise it's too much. Jed, you had a lot of similar complaints. So I'm a little surprised. So how did it earn, how did it actually earn a fist on your scorecard? So I felt really conflicted trying to figure out where I wanted to kind of put this for my scoring. And I have to this point, given if it's two fists, I think the movie is great and I would actively tell friends to watch it. That's kind of my baseline. And if it's one fist, I would not dissuade people from watching.

So yeah, that's a reasonable film to watch it. And I think this just clears that bar because I have all the same issues Casey has with it. I do think it does enough things well that it deserves better than Fight Valley. Like if that's a simple way to put it. The acting in this film is very good. The story is a little bit jumbled and certainly needs editing, but overall you're getting something that is a real piece of filmmaking. There are enough, and the final scene alone is good enough that if you're just an

MMA fan and can make it through the two hours before, I guess the hour and 45 minutes until the final scene, you get paid off in the end with that, maybe if not in the story arcs. And so because it is, you know, it has good cinematography. The score is good. The dialogue is honestly not that bad. It is just, it has that one major flaw that holds it down. I still don't think that if someone I knew was like, hey, I'm going to check out bruise. Have you seen it?

I'd be like, yeah, I would certainly let them know. It's not a happy time, but I wouldn't be like, you should not watch that. And so it's going to get a fist for me. Interesting. Well, this puts a sense of a bit. Oh, sorry, I'll quickly explain my review. Again, that final fight scene really is just snuff, just based on that. And I did enjoy some of the drama.

I thought Hallie Berry and the young actor who played Manny. There was a connection there. I just wish they could have let them have a little more fun. They, I say they, she directed herself. I wish there could have been a little more fun in there, a little more of that kind of bonding as opposed to just trauma bonding. which is a thing in real life, it's not the most compelling thing to watch on screen necessarily. So we needed more of that.

But overall, I thought the fighting content was solid. I don't want to say I loved the movie or even particularly enjoyed it, but I didn't regret watching it. I haven't regretted, really, I haven't regretted watching any of the films we've done, guys. But this is, so this is two out of six. We have a conundrum here, guys. We have our first tie. We are our first tie.

So, Casey, before I had to say how we're going to settle this, could you throw up sort of our tier list of what is so far the five greatest MMA movies of all time? Yeah, this is the five. This is a fan of let's so, again, in progress, obviously, guys, in progress. But science takes time. So there it is. We have blood and bone in number one. Masfurtia, Mundo, number two, roadhouse number three, Fight Valley, number four. And bruised, unranked.

It's not number five. It's unranked. Yeah, right. So it is brute, by our math, it will be. move above Pite Valley, again, agree to disagree. And it will tie with Roadhouse, which we also gave two out of six. Now, here's how we're going to decide this. Casey, I remember you gave Roadhouse a fist.

Yes, you gave Roadhouse a fist because I gave it no fist. So clearly you and I are on the opposite sides of this. So my vote would be to have bruised ahead of Roadhouse. Your vote would have to be to have bruised behind Roadhouse. Jed, you will be the decider here. You will be the, I think you have to be the decider. One vote. So right now it's one for bruise.

I hate it. Yeah, one for Roadhouse. Jedd, where is this going to go? Does this go before? Is this number three or number four? I have to put this at four. Ooh. I don't feel good about that decision, frankly.

But one of these movies, while I think is objectively, I think objectively bruises a better film than Roadhouse, because Roadhouse has so many huge problems with it. one of them I would watch again and one I would not. And the one I would watch again is Roadhouse. I might not be stoked about it, but there are at least, there's levity, there's joy to it. The opening hour prior to Connor's arrival is quite good. So I think that that's going to elevate it above if I have to.

Because I think if I had two friends come up to me like, I got a pick between watching these two movies, I would send them to Roadhouse. more than fair I do think we all agree if we could take just one scene we would all pick the fight scene from bruise over anything in Roadhouse okay but if we're taking the movie I would honestly pick the fight scene and bruised

over anything in any of the movies we have watched thus far blood and bones some good stuff in there Susie Selick every time she's on screen in a true MMA fight yeah bruise by far mixed martial arts fight

yeah bruise that one scene that one scene stands out it is unfortunate that It's just not a particularly enjoyable watch. And I think this is, I think we are making this list not just for, like, hardcore cinefiles, but for people who are looking for a martial arts film to kind of sit down and enjoy, it's a tough ask to get people to sit through the entirety of Bruce just to get to that one scene,

which is worth it. It's great. But if I, you're right, if someone said, I'm looking for a martial arts movie to have enjoy Roadhouse Bruised, nine out of ten people are probably going to want to watch Roadhouse instead. It's such a weird thing because I know bruise is a better, much better movie. We all know this. We all know this.

Then say Fight Valley. But some reason I don't like saying this out loud. I actually enjoyed watching Fight Valley more than Bruce. That's insane. That's not insane. There you go. Finally, finally, we have gotten, this is, all of this was so I could get Casey to this point.

Yes. Casey, go on. Because Fight Valley was shot on a couple of iPhones by like, by like junior high kids. And you know what? And for, and for a budget of $14. And as far as we know, no women, by the way, were involved in the creative side. Like, I don't think it's directing really. It was all men, all men.

I mean, and Fight Valley and Bruce had both two very unnecessary lesbian sex scenes. But I don't know. For some reason, like, I don't know. I enjoyed watching how bad Fight Valley was. Because Bruce had potential. And like the potential that's, That's what kind of hurts me because, like, there was so much money and talent that went into Bruised. Even, like, even look at this poster.

That's a great poster. That looks freaking cool. You know, that's a very well-designed poster. I have all the posters on the screen. This, it looks the best. So there were so many, there were so many talented artists that went into Brewed. It just, like, we've said it a million times, it was just too much. And I kind of, and I almost kind of hate it now because of that.

Because it could have been something and it didn't, you know. That lost potential. But FI. Valley never had potential. I love the poster now. FI. Valley made me angry with how bad it was. Stand by it. I stand by it. Listen, it is official.

That's just me. It is officially the fifth greatest M.A. movie of all time behind Bruges, behind Road House, behind the Stronger than the world and behind Blood and Bone. So I have any say in it. It will be the last every time. As long as I can keep putting that thing in the back. We got a lot of movies.

Something's going to get zero fists eventually. My one fist will save Fight Valley from Ignominy. So next week, guys, we've said after Stronger Than the World, we said, boy, we need a movie that has some strong female characters. I think we got that this week. So they go. That's checked off. Now, after both these movies, we need something with joy. We need something with levity.

I have not seen this movie, but it has Kevin James in it. So I imagine there has to be at least a few laughs in here. we're going to close out our first season of this is cinema with the very popular MMA comedy here comes the boom starting many M.A fighters, let every came cameos. This is going to be number one at the end of the season. I hope so because I thought Roadhouse was going to hold on to that number one spot for a while and it held on for about what a week, a week or two, I don't even know. So guys, thank you.

And then gave it up. You know, I'm just glad we talked about Fight Valley so much. Guys, Fight Valley, I remind I should remind you all every week. That's free to watch on YouTube. Free to watch on YouTube. Free to watch. Cost you nothing.

It's 90 minutes. It's on YouTube. There's four front of nudity, spoiler. And if you watch it, and listen, if you watch it two times speed, 45 minutes. So really you have no reason. You have no reason not to watch Fight Valley. You have reasons not to.

No. Next week here calls the boom. Thank you, Jedmichu. Thank you, Casey Leiden. It has been so much fun. And I can't wait to actually. have fun watching a movie. Thank God.

So thanks to everyone for listening. And we will see you next time. Love y'all. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. With Instacart, you get groceries that over-deliver so you can over-share your preferences. Want russet potatoes with no brown spots?

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