Street tells the story of Remo Street (Beau Casper Smart), a former wrestling champ now looking for a job so he can keep supporting his poor family. One night, while at a store, he helps some people fend off some Russian thugs. This catches the attention of fight coach Oz, who wants to train Remo to become a professional MMA fighter. But this also puts him in trouble with the Russian mob, who force him to compete in an underground fight ring lest they do harm to his family.
Street, like dozens of other films, takes its cue from Rocky. It’s about a fighter from the wrong side of the tracks who gets a chance to become something greater. With the help of a trainer that believes in him and a woman that makes him want to become a better man, he is able to overcome the odds and make his life better. Except this film takes every element of Rocky and actively seems to make it worse.
There’s actually a bunch of other things going on in this picture. There is some convoluted issue about a guy who owes a debt to the mob, and how it’s affecting his family. What’s weird is that this guy is ultimately made out to be the worst person in this story. The film eventually reveals a strange respect for the Russian mob and the way they do business. Never mind that they spend the entire movie threatening to kill people. Never mind that they’re outright criminals that cause suffering. At the very end, they make an honorable deal, and they’re to be lauded for that.
The film then runs through the motions of the underdog sports movie, without really understanding the fuel that makes that work. The thing about Remo Street is that he is an uninteresting character. There isn’t some character flaw that he needs to work out, no arc for him to discover. The film acts like the character is being drawn into two very different worlds. The truth is that the character never makes the sensible choice of just telling people about what he’s been doing. That’s not a character flaw; that’s just bad writing.
This could be forgiven if the fights were at least compelling. But this is not the case, either. The film never actually tells any stories through its fights. The footage so disconnected and random that it might as well be b-roll. Beau Casper Smart is a terrible actor, and he never quite sells his character’s tough background. But he is matched in awfulness from scene to scene by practically every other member of this cast.
If one is just looking for a film about MMA, then one might consider Fighter, which is a far more interesting, better executed picture. That too is a film that takes some of its cues from Rocky, but it is one that actually learns the lessons of that movie. Street is just a really bad movie that doesn’t even have the decency to show us any good fighting. It doesn’t seem to understand what it is about the underdog sports movie that stayed so appealing over the last thirty years.
My Rating:
