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75Fightville, you had me at "gladiator school."
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75The dramatic stakes are high in Fightville, and Epperlein and Tucker shine a little light on the margins of this marginalized sport.
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75Fightville's most worthwhile material tends to lie in the space between what its subjects say and what we know to be true.
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70Spiked with energy and attitude, the nonfiction movie Fightville takes a fast look at a few men who, for pleasure and sometimes profit, like to smack and take down other men while practicing mixed martial arts.
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70By the end, Fightville feels authentic about this world, where success may be measured in wins, but the balance of unrelenting brutality and self-discipline needed for those wins is a trickier equation.
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50The language of ground-and-pound fighting remains untranslated for those not fluent in MMA, though ample space is given to the men's discussion of their individual warrior philosophies, illustrated with quotes from Nietzsche, P.T. Barnum, and Virgil.
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Apr 16, 201250Ready-to-order fan base certainly means exposure, but helmers Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein aren't interested in glorifying the gore of ultimate fighting as much as revealing its heart.
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50The mistake filmmakers Tucker and Epperlein (Gunner Palace) make here is assuming that fighters reveal their true characters in discussing their craft, when in fact just the opposite occurs.
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40Fightville doesn't pummel you with outsider viewpoints - it doesn't seem to display much of a point of view at all.