It's all right to not like a movie. But don't get not liking it mixed up with not getting it. "Fighting" is not about fighting. It's about the mentality and culpability of a young drifter - Shawn - who stumbles into success at being a street fighter. He's a nice young man who never set out to be a fighter... or much of anything else, for that matter. He gets involved with Harvey, a second-rate street hustler who sees Shawn's potential as a street fighter and pimps the kid out for money. Shawn realizes he's being exploited and doesn't mind. That's nothing amazing. It happens every day. The acting is just fine. These aren't refined people; they are street people. The actors portrayed that. While this isn't an award-winning film, it did fulfill its mission. For viewers who expected something else, too bad. Get over it, and evaluate what was presented, not what you psyched yourself up for.

I don't like to write negative reviews, but with a film like this. I feel like i'm being more then modest. So the film was sold to the audience as an original take on an inspired action film, that all boys and men love "Wrong bet" starring Van Damme. The film stars Tatum in one of his first action roles, and it fails. You can't really call it a remake, because its not. You can't call it an adaptation, because its not. You cant call it an Action film, because its not. You cant call it Drama, because its not. You can call it a bad attempt at film making all together. The film has two, maybe 3 fights in total. Tatum character wins one fight by accident, and that makes him the champion. Yes, we don't see a montage or even hear it in passing dialogue that he beat other fighters or that he is a great fighter. We see him go up against one guy, who slips and knocks himself out while beating the living sh out of Tatum and thats it.The acting in the film is pretty terrible, Tatum didn't even try to act he just appeared angry in every shot. Howard was playing the same role he had played in hustle, just a pimp from the hood, you can say.IF you want to watch this film, Don't! instead look up and stream/ download or watch the Van Damme version Wrong Bet or Lion-heart, much more enjoyable with the same level of acting, but better and actual fight scenes, better story and a really cool soundtrack and theme music.

This is probably one of the worst films I have ever seen. First off, the story-line is predictable and not very well written and thought about. But the acting is horrendous. Channing Tatum struggles with his words and mumbles throughout the whole film. It's embarrassing just to watch how hard he struggles to act and often times pauses and says something different than what he was supposed to. The way Tatum's character and his girlfriend in the movie talk is very unbelievable and unconvincing of a real relationship. The acting is worse than a poorly-written school play. The only reason I would give it a 3 stars instead of 1/10 is because it had some adequate fighting scenes. Would not recommend any soul to watch this utter filth of a movie.

I was looking forward to seeing this film for many a reasons. It turns out to be a remake/re-imaging on one of my favorite films of all times: Walter Hill's 1975 film "Hard Times" with the late greats Charles Bronson & James Coburn. But in the end , it nowhere near comes close to duplicating the power of it. It was somewhat disappointing. The fights scenes start out nice. What I mean is the build up to the actual fight are more entertaining! Not a good sign. And then the actual fight scenes are so annoying! The camera moving all around and you really can't see what's going on. I hate when a director does all that moving around stuff. Just hate it. And what's more irritating and perplexing to me is that Channing's Shawn MacArthur character is not really a good fighter!? He can take blows pretty good but that's about it. He really isn't that good. i can't tell if he's a boxer or a wrestler because he tries to do both in some capacity. Even in the 1st fight, he was getting his butt kicked big time by the Russian fighter and he wins only by the default because the Russian hits his head on a water fountain! After seeing that pathetic 1st fight scene, I find it hard to believe that Howard's Harvey would want anything to do with this kid! Let alone set up another fight! But if that didn't happened , then there would be no movie. And any movie that has a somewhat more better fight scene than the so-called final climatic fight scene, is not good at all. I mean the 2nd and especially the 3rd fight, were way more exciting than the final one!? Anyways, I had never really seen this new up-and-coming actor Channing Tatum. So I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about this (new to me) young actor. He was well cast as a young "good-ole-boy" from Alabama.Terrence Howard as second-rate scam artist/hustler Harvey Boarden was okay at best. His delivery was somewhat funny playing him with a slow drawl. He seemed more like a pimp than a scam artist.Pretty Zulay Henao as Zulay Velez was pretty good but she really didn't have much to do but be the love interest to Channing's character. Nice touch in using her real unique name in naming her character. They had some chemistry, so that helped some. Interesting note/trivia is that Zulay was engaged in real life to Terrence Howard! So it's a treat to see their scenes together.The always reliable character actors Luis Guzmán as Howard's rival Martinez and Roger Guenveur Smith as high-roller Jack Dancing, were okay at best.Of the fighters, Brian White as Channing's main rival, Evan Hailey was somewhat a disappointment. White's Hailey was portrayed as a annoying, conceited asshole jerk. I guess this was done on purpose so you could hate the character right away and can't wait for Channin to kick his ass big time. Trouble is that Brian's Evan is not intimidating enough to be viewed as a major threat. He more looks like a singer celebrity than a fighter! And even though Brian is 6'2" to Channing's 6'1", he still looks small next to Channing!? The other two fighters, Big Dante Nero as Kimo & Cung Le as Dragon Le did pretty good in their brief time on screen. Especially Asian fighter Cung Le I liked. Cung really did present a dangerous type of threat to Channing in the 3rd fight. This is what was needed at the end of the film as a climatic fight. Not the weak and no surprise ending of the Channing vs Brian fight.All in all, I don't regret seeing it, but I doubt very much I'll be seeing again any time soon. Too bad, I guess if I wanna go see a fight film, I'll go see my 'Hard Times' for the 100th time then! Ha ha..