Grade:        B

Moral:        Don’t help movie stars.

Easier to admire David Mamet’s movies than to really get behind them, given how knee-deep they are in their own stylistic affectations: that is, it’s admirable to see someone sticking to the particulars of their obtuse style, though less so when they end up hobbled by their own archness, doubly less so when the manner of their style seems grafted on from another art-form entirely. In other words, Mamet’s stuff tends to come off as theater via cameras, and his scripts as attempts to reinvigorate language via entirely the wrong medium (dialog being more a cinematic glue than a centerpiece; at least so it seems with, well... good movies).

So: take away the writer/director credit, and you’d never guess Redbelt came from Mamet, and that may be an asset. Instead of being burdened by his auteur ballast, the movie is allowed room to breathe, to be a surprisingly awesome take on dignity and honor in the era of the $$$. Basically an underdog sports-movie that somehow doesn’t suck, but also an intensely realized character-portrait (there’s a twisty plot, too; this is Mamet), it’s a stripped-down flick that delivers its points and leaves, and works all the better for its lack of artifice. Granted, it’s unfortunate that its climax is a bit blase and its soundtrack unbelievably goofy, or that Mamet still isn’t much of a visual artist. Nevertheless, it’s a smooth, simple movie perfectly assured in its smoothness and simplicity, and it functions wonderfully as an antidote for The Forbidden Kingdom, in that it sees martial-arts mastery as something more than another cash cow for acne-riddled preteens.

(Personal note: it’s not that I don’t like Mamet. “You ever take a dump that made you feel like you’d slept for 12 hours?” remains one of my favorite ice-breakers, after all.)