In regards to the family drama, I like the way that it’s played out, where they give you bits and pieces of their history, enough for you to piece it together and see where everyone’s coming from, without straight up spelling the whole thing out for you. This could’ve very easily gone into heavy exposition, if not straight up flashback territory, but they managed to handle this whole aspect in a subtler and more realistic manner, which I found myself appreciating, and I thought was very well executed.
And as it regards to the MMA aspect, the fights in this movie are absolutely exhilarating. I was seriously on the edge of my seat watching these bouts. And the way they tell the story was almost poetic, where the older brother is the underdog fighting for his life, while the younger brother is just effortlessly steamrolling through the competition, all leading up to an emotional climax between the two, where everything comes to a head in an incredibly visceral and satisfying manner. They did an outstanding job telling these characters’ stories and translating their struggles into the MMA portion of the film I thought.
The performances all around are top notch stuff. These are seriously Oscar worthy performances from Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, and Joel Edgerton. Not to mention it was actually brilliant casting getting Hardy and Edgerton to play brothers. I never noticed before this movie just how much those two actually do look alike.
Also, I may have marked out a little when I saw Kurt Angle pop up. I didn’t know he was in this.
