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Show Honor has a price in intricate, suspensefii 'Redbelt' Carina Chocano Review Mike to ask her brother Bruno (Rodrigo Santoro) for a loan. Bruno is a nightclub owner and pressure is tough, a fight promoter who has been Redbelt when it's trying to get his brother-in-laDirector: David Mamet and instigrown-uinto the ring. But Mike refuses '" " tutionalized. In samurai movL :i to compete, as "competition Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tim Allen, ies, as in westerns, the warrior weakens the fighter." While at ' Alice Braga, Emily Mortimer is often faced with a choice his brother-in-lawclub, Mike between individual morality Running time: 1 hr., 39 min. happens to rescue a movie star and fealty to the tribe. IndiChet Frank (a restrained Tim R for strong language vidual morality tends to prevail Rating: Allen) from a bar fight, and until society can be established Location: Opens Friday in gets a dinner invitation. and impose order, though in theaters everywhere You know it's bad news this, it bears repeating, becontemporary samurai movies, such as Jim Jarmusch's excelwhen ing a Mamet movie lent "Ghost Dog," both choices Mike Terry happens to be the fine, upstanding guy is - - can be rendered absurd by the only lured into the movie business, LOREY SEBASTIANThe Redbelt Company, Sony Pictures Classics the circumstances. This is not on how and Mike's radiant smile on the depending you regard him ("You're addicted to povLaura Black Emily Mortimer, left and Mike Terry Chiwetel entirely so in David Mamet's morning after his first set visit with Chet tells you all you need tricky and engrossing "Red-beltEjiofor in "Redbelt." erty," his disgusted brother-in-laa contemporary noir tells him), who is bothered to know about what's next for with a samurai movie interior, by this. him. which is as sincere, plaintive "I don't teach people to one night when a distraught be lead easily astray. Ejiofor brings a calm magand strangely optimistic a netism and a beatific serenity Of course, "Redbelt" being fight," Mike says on more than stranger named Laura Black movie as he's made. to his roles that have the effect a Mamet movie (he wrote and (Emily Mortimer) comes in out one occasion, "I teach them to In "Redbelt," the hero and of knocking you flat there's directed), the noir puzzle eleof the rain to tell Mike that she prevail." You know in your sole guardian of the moral has accidentally dented his car heart or at least you hope something about this guy that's ment is central to the story, code is Mike Terry (Chiwetel messianic. From his first moand and wants to pay for the damthat Mike will have it in replete with double-crosse- s ments on the screen, as he other betrayals. Mike is one of age. A misunderstanding leads him to follow his own lessons, Ejiofor), the owner of a jujitsu talks his star pupil, police ofbut the movie makes a good two innocents (the other is Of- to her lunging for Joe's gun academy. The clan is the rapacious Brazilian jujitsu ficer Joe Collins (Max Martini), ficer Joe) caught in a web that and taking out a plate-glas- s case for how hard this can he has married be when the fight is between extends far beyond the param- window. Joe decides not to rethrough a fight, ( Commit to the move," he tells him "You eters of professional fighting. into, and the problem is not port the incident, so insurance what's morally correct and that it is up to him to uphold know the escape. You know It's a corrupt world in which , doesn't cover the window. For what's economically expedient. what is honorable until society the escape."), he emanates a Mamet leads his fight ef furMike's wife, Sondra (Alice morality and honor have been certain trustworthiness and ther into a trap from which it imposes order. Braga), this is the last straw. edged so far out that they're This society could care less levelheadedness that makes seems he won't escape. But he Sondra, whose fledgling dwelling in the lunatic fringe. about order it has embraced him seem like a bedrock of Mike has asked Joe to stay fashion business is helping knows the escape. He knows float the academy, pushes conviction. This is not a guy to after class at the academy the escape. corruption at every level, and LOS ANGELES TIMES CD .7 Peer w p f- V 's ," dynasty-in-the-maki- . Indy ready to walk back through our door in 'Crystal Skull' David Germain THE ASSOCIATED an average Joe that's always in over his head that somehow seems to get through it." PRESS rarion Ravenwood might have been speaking for us all when she first set 3 The new movie Cate Blanchett as Irina Spalko, a co-sta- Russian operative with crisp black bangs who's after the Crystal Skull of Akator, an ancient artifact that could help the Soviet Union dominate the world. Ray Winstone plays a new Indy ally, and the film also John Hurt and Jim -- eyes on Indiana Jones in 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Her caustic greeting to the archaeologist adventurer . who'd walked out on their romantic fling years earlier was, "Indiana Jones. I always knew someday you'd come walking back through my door." It's been 19 years since Indy literally rode off into the sunset at the end of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," but, like Indiana Jones Harrison Ford in Marion, could anyone doubt Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" that the world's most famous tomb raider would come back into our lives one day? "He's a real guy. He's just For 27 years, Indy has stood like us," said George Lucas, as one of cinema's ultimate who dreamed up the character with director Everyman heroes, a poster boy and for the idea that there are some Steven Spielberg and Harrigood men you can never, ever son Ford as Indy for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the keep down. -- co-sta- DAVID JAMESParamount Pictures "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull," due out May 22. "He makes lots of mistakes," Lucas said. "He kind of goofs up. He has the same kind of thinking that we have. He's beat up all the time. It's like he's not a superhero. He's just Broadbent. "Raiders" fans are thrilled over the return of Karen Allen as Marion, while Shia LaBeouf plays Indy's new sidekick, Mutt Williams. An early press kit for "Crystal Skull" describes Mutt as a "rebellious with a chip on his shoulder and some personal business to discuss with Dr. Jones." Fans have speculated that Mutt is the love child of Indy and Marion, though the film makers won't say. Resurrecting Indy took more than a decade of debate, disagreement and compromise among the film's three principals, Spielberg and Ford dislikthere initial idea ing a way-oLucas had. "It was the three of us, Steven, George and I, coming to agreement on the central notion of it all," Ford said. "I think the original idea is still a large piece of it in the movie, but it's been developed and worked on in ways that made it a lot more palatable to Steven and I." "The MacGuffin of it slowed down a little bit from what my original enthusiastic version was. Again, that's the way it works with Steven and Harrison and I," Lucas said. "We're not going to do anything anyone's uncomfortable with. We want to do something everybody likes, we in the group, the three of us." ut |