![]() The director avoids unnecessary camera cuts during the fights, making them much easier to follow than a lot of other movies in the genre and he deserves a lot of credit for resisting the urge that's plagued so many other film-makers. The real-world fighters all, unsurprisingly, look the part in what are essentially cameo roles (Bob Sapp comes across as one of the most legitimately terrifying looking men on the planet, while Gina Carano is disturbingly hot when she's pounding the crap out of a hapless female opponent) and Nona Gaye handling the love-interest part with aplomb and dignity. ![]() The main cast are great in their respective roles, with Jai White (bad-ass to the, ahem, bone), Julian Sands (an actor who deserves to star in better movies than he has in the past), Eamonn Walker (who plays his part with villainous relish) and Dante Basco (who gets most of the best lines) all excelling. The non-fighting dramatic “story forwarding” scenes, which normally drag a film like this down, also shine more than they have any right to. The fight scenes are brutal and realistic (under the watchful eye Fernando Chien) and most of the characters are more well rounded than this type of film normally gets, despite some of them being stereotypes. It's a pulsating opening that sets the tone for the rest of the movie. In that regard, it's mission accomplished because Bone is a bad-ass of the highest order (“You got til the count of five” being just as menacing as old Clint telling folks to vacate his lawn), taking out all eight would-be assassins in less than twenty seconds. This opening scene is designed specifically to get across exactly how great a fighter Isaiah Bone, and, by extension, Michael Jai White ( The Dark Knight and the title character in Spawn, a personal favourite of mine) is. Now, unless you haven't seen a movie before in your life, you don't need me to tell you that the eight-strong team of hardened cons aren't successful, otherwise we'd have a short movie on our hands. The movie opens with pre-credits scene showing a gang of prisoners, led by the genuinely scary Kimbo Slice (with genuinely scary bushy beard), heading to the prison shower room to take out our hero (after paying off an unseen guard). In that respect, this movie nails it dead on. My personal favourite in this genre is Best of the Best 2 (I don't count the first BotB, mainly because the fighting tournament was legit, even though Dae Han does fall into the undefeatable category), but because the synopsis of these films is quite generic, it's up to the writers, actors, director and fight choreographer to make their version of events stand out from all the rest. Truth be told, it's a genre unto itself and has managed to endure for decades with pretty much the same plot (noble guy fights for a good cause, the fights are controlled by a crook and the last guy they face is an undefeatable monster who has a habit of seriously injuring or killing his opponents). and yes, he is every bit as good as his resume reads. This movie's top dog is a guy called Price, played by legitimate 5-time world champion in martial arts and co-creator of Extreme Martial Arts (XMA), a combat sport combining martial arts and gymnastics, Matt Mullins. Respectable guy, who just so happens to be a great fighter, gets caught up in the underground fighting circuit, battling an array of guys until finally getting the one-on-one contest against the unstoppable killer (in the case of A.W.O.L., Atilla, played rather convincingly and charismatically by Abdel Qissi). (also released under the names Wrong Bet and Lionheart), the Jean Claude Van Damme movie released in 1991. The above synopsis should be familiar with anyone who has seen A.W.O.L. When Bone refuses James' request to fight on the international circuit, it sets off a powerful battle between the two, amidst some surprising revelations about what drove Bone to get involved with James in the first place. Along the way, he destroys the area's best fighter, who is under the control of local mob boss, James (Eammon Walker). When ex-con Isaiah Bone (Jai White) gets out of prison, he immediately seeks out a room to rent and gets involved in LA's underground fight scene. Distributed by: Sony Pictures Entertainment
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