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The movie features Nathan Grubbs and Marc Senter as Fontaine siblings, Charlie and Bobby, who are performing underground riverboat fights in New Orleans. As rated fighters, both boys were performing exceptionally well until Charlie’s boxing interest diverged into fighting for sport and his younger brother Bobby became embroiled in drugs and debt with the mob controlling the underground riverboat fights. To add, Charlie’s personal life changes as well since he recently married Kat James, an attractive but neglecting spouse he adored so much. Sadly, things escalate when Bobby’s debts to the mob worsen and a gang arrives at his place looking for trouble; he fights himself out of it but not before Charlie attempts a valiant rescue. At that point, the damage was done though as Bobby saved Charlie from a crowd but Charlie was unfortunate enough to receive a vicious unsuspensed baseball bat strike to the knee.
Charlie recuperates, and two months later finds him working on a construction while Bobby, who is in hiding from mob, lives with Charlie and Kat. But before Kat’s drug use further spirals, she and Bobby get sexually intimate, and are later caught by Charlie, who infuriated begins to fight them. Charlie challenges Bobby to a lethal duel on the riverboat, but the question remains, can the bonds of brotherhood withstand a mistake?
On the outside Brawler appears to be fighting out of the same corner as the Never Back Down sequels, and nothing could be further from the truth. The fact that this is based on a true story adds it some credibility, and the story in question is not so much about the fight but about the whole chain of events surrounding this particular fight. Charlie is the more level-headed of the two, but perhaps suffers from not being able to appreciate some people (Bobby and Kat) for what they are, and tries to lower the standard and make it work for them all, but once the betrayal happens and he has to deal the shattered pieces of his world order, Bobby, it seems could care less.
Grubbs and Senter surely put a great performance as the fighting siblings, and Batt plays the part of Bobby’s gay millionaire friend well, who is blissfully unaware of the peril surrounding him. Kat is played by Pell James wonderfully as she does not show empathy which is possibly the whole point. Kat’s heart died long before Charlie came into the picture. In the end, he was just another pawn of Kat’s self-destructive personality.
The pacing of the film itself posed a few concerns for me. It seems like some of the dark night scenes, particularly the indoor ones, were dark for no obvious reason, and there were times when the actors were almost impossible to see. Certain shadow placements were pretty good, but more often than not they spoiled the story. There were places where the music was too loud compared to the dialog. One very positive thing is the blues and bluegrass music certainly deserves special mention. Wonderful music cuts come into the film where they should. They have to release this soundtrack! The New Orleans and Louisiana parts were well executed and the city itself was like a character set adding to the mood of the action. Everything got worse for Charlie and Bobby, and the atmosphere around them just got darker and darker.
The fights were okay, fairly well done, and most happen in a cage ring, therefore there isn’t much complicated movement, but the point is reality for this type of film, and it achieves that better than the majority of films of this sort. Unlike the previous fights which are meant to be enthusiastic, the final fight is more dramatic. It builds some suspense as to how far each brother is willing to go to win.
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