Director: Nick Sarkisov
Writer: David McKenna (Screenplay) Frank Ragen (Story)
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Elizabeth Reaser, Donald Faison, Karrueche Tran, Drew Starkey, Drew Scheid, Said Taghmaoui
Plot: A son aspires to follow in his famous MMA father’s footsteps, but along his journey must figure out how to break the abusive cycle, if possible, that his father has continued.
Runtime: 1 Hour 57 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Embattled starts as we meet Jett (Mann) the son of a champion MMA fighter Cash (Dorff) who has always shown him tough love, living Jett with his mother Susan (Reaser) with little money to get through. Jett still being in high school watching over his younger brother, he has all the good-natured side of him.
When Cash decides he wants to help Jett become an MMA fighter too, he will see the change coming through Jett, one that could send him down the same spiral of errors that Cash put him through.
Thoughts on Embattled
Thoughts – Embattled is a sports drama showing how an arrogant MMA fighter has walked over everyone in his life, including his family, forcing his own kids to struggle in life, until he offers to use the tough love he once received to get his eldest into MMA. As the training continues, we get to see what can be done to improve a young fighter. Where this film really makes a big mistake, is having the Cash character be the one that wants the union for the fighters against the big company, because this is something that is needed in the competition, but clearly needed to be on the side of the fan favourite, not the guy everybody seems to be hating. Away from the sport, this is all about breaking the cycle of abuse placed upon someone, not knowing things would have been a mistake in the past. We do get some solid performances in this film, which continues to show Stephen Dorff in the fighting movies, while Darren Mann shows a lot of potential in the younger fighting role. The fight sequences do work well for the final showdown, showing the brutal side to the sport.
Final Thoughts – Embattled is a hard hitting sports drama.
