David Mamet takes his singular style into the rarefied world of jiu-jitsu, but the combination of his hard-bitten dialogue and the very UN Rocky-like milieu of this particular martial arts arena don't really produce satisfying results.

Story

Mike (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a true purist, a master Jiu-jitsu teacher who, along with his wife Sondra (Sonia Braga), operates a rundown academy. At great cost to himself, Mike is not a sellout but his refusal to train his students for the more commercial…

No writer knows how a con game ticks better than David Mamet. He's proved it repeatedly as a playwright (Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo) and a filmmaker (House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner). So you sense a sting in Redbelt when Mamet zooms in on ethics in the person of Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a Gulf War veteran who runs a jujitsu studio in L.A. according to strict samurai code. To Mike, there's shame in competition, which puts him up against the American way as he is prodded to…