Shawn's Redbelt Review

2008 Movie #160 - Redbelt

Another movie I was sure I was going to miss. Actually I've had it available for a while so I mostly assumed I would miss it because I would never take the time to sit down and watch it. The main reason I did is because I've started to see it show up on a huge bunch of Top Movies of 2008 lists so I got curious. After watching it, I don't really get why it's showing up on these lists really. It's not a bad movie don't get me wrong, but I definitely couldn't place this one in my top 10. Hell I doubt I could do the top 30 or maybe even 50. It just wasn't for me really.

As with Secret Life of Bees, it's a performance from this movie that stood out to me more than anything. That would of course be Tim Allen. Now I should stay up front that I am anything but a fan of his. I don't like Home Improvement (if you would like I could summarize every episode of the show ever in about 10 seconds...I have a feeling I actually did that in another post somewhere in this blog) and most of his movies are crap. Galaxy Quest aside, we have Wild Hogs, all three Santa Clause movies, Zoom, Jungle 2 Jungle, Christmas with the Kranks and the list probably goes on.

Here however he does alright because he takes on a more serious role. The man is actually a pretty decent actor if given the right oppurtunity. Plus it was kind of cool to hear him say fuck. Tim's performance was the one thing I really carried away from this movie.

Well him and this one scene where a woman is supposed to be angry at the main character for something I won't spoil here. The reason this scene stands out is that the woman isn't exactly what you would call good at acting. She doesn't seem angry, she barely seems mildly upset. I would go as far as to call her disinterested even. It's a bizarre scene that actually made me laugh, which considering the context, probably wasn't their intention.

That's about all I have to say. The plot is ok, the performances are mostly good aside from the one mentioned in the last paragraph, and some of the fighting is cool. Other than that, meh.

**/5