Born A Champion - Movie Review

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why Review Born A Champion
• 0:37 Cast, Cred, And Setup
• 2:55 Early Vibes And Era Setting
• 5:15 Clichés, Characters, And Cringe
• 9:01 Is The Hero Too Perfect
• 11:13 Real Jiu-Jitsu Or Movie Jiu-Jitsu
• 15:25 Product Placement And Hydration Ad
• 16:15 Grading The Fight Scenes
• 19:20 We Wanted More Violence
• 21:00 The CCTV Fight That Lost Us
• 23:10 Made For Grapplers, Not Civilians

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bulletproof of BJJ podcast. Today we're doing a movie review. Ooh. Because fuck me, it's been too long. Too long. And we did some movie reviews back in the day, top martial arts films, top action films. Yes, sir. And there was from you guys a suggestion of have you guys seen Born a Champion? Born a Champion. And we're like, no, we've never even fucking heard of it. And we're like, bro, it's got a legit jujitsu guy in it, and it's got the best jujitsu fight scenes, and you gotta watch it. And so we finally watched it. And so here's our fucking take. Okay. So I'll get Joey to lead in because I think we have different takes. Alright, so let me let me give you the rundown first. Uh it's R-rated, it was directed, it was um released in 2021, so it's pretty recent. Um, it on Rotten Tomatoes, it doesn't have any tomato score. But the pop the popcorn meter is 80% from 100 plus ratings. Now, the star of the show is Sean Patrick Flannery, who, correct me if I'm wrong, is a uh second degree black belt, or was at the time under Henzo Gracie. He yeah, he's a student of Henzo's, yes. And uh and the film also features like some other MMA fighters. It's got Edson Barboza. Yeah, as the protagonist. Cannot be fucking mad about antagonist, I should say. Yeah, and he's looking mint, he looks real good. Uh, and then there's like Mickey Gole. Mickey Gole is in there, there's a couple of other MMA cats and maybe some jujitsu cats. Where I saw Kit Dale as an extra in the background. Oh, you did during the fight? Dude, it was shot mostly in LA. Yeah, during the fight, there's a scene where he like does something and they cut, and I think it's Kit going, Oh, like this. Kit's doing all this fight training just to be like a like a scrap out of his head. He doesn't even get to do anything. No, um I was surprised to see the cast was mostly pretty, you know, faces you haven't seen before. Yeah. Except Dennis Quaid shows up. And I was like kind of the bad guy. Yeah, he plays the Dana White. Yeah. No, he's not the bad guy. Well, I mean, he's not the good guy. I mean, he's the Dana White, so he's you know, questionable. So um the the one-line synopsis is a former Marine prepares for a jiu-jitsu rematch against a bruising opponent who cheated during their first encounter. True. So, um shit, where do we start? Give me, give, I got a little list here. Give me your give me your like you've turned it on, you're like, fuck yeah, I'm sitting down to watch this thing, it's got jujitsu in it, guys legit. You press play, opening credits, opening scene. What's the opening vibe for you? Okay, so the production on it is good, and so in that way, I was like, okay, well, I actually thought the film was older. I didn't know as much about it as you've just listed. Like, I've literally just learned stuff about the movie now, listening to Joe. I thought it was older because of the way it was framed. I think it's meant to be set earlier, yeah. It's set early, it's set late 90s. Yes, but it's early days MMA. Right, before it even heard a name. Yeah. And which to its credit, it does a very in the story, it does a good job of taking some actual historical uh realities of MMA's evolution and jujitsu's role in that, and then kind of like weaving in this fictional tale of uh Mickey, what's his name? Mickey fucking uh Mickey Blue Eyes, Mickey Terry. No, I don't know. I look, yeah, he I think he's a good actor, I think he's a good character, but I can't fucking handle his hair. His hair is fucking ridiculous. It's always like fucking this man. And his son has the same hair. No way. So and look, um, it opens okay. Look, the character Taco, I'm not cool with that. I don't know why he's cool with that. The I mean the Latino guy with the fucking neck tattoos and an auto works shop. And his name's Taco. You're like, you're like, come on, hombre. It's like fuck. I mean, I know I know that like LA you can sum it up in like those, but it's like no, I was not I was not cool with that. And also the way they open it is they're interviewing him, like they're asking him, like a documentary. Yeah, it's like, what's the greatest fight of all time? And he's like, Look, some would say the greatest fight of all time is Hicks and Gracie versus some famous Japanese guy, but I would actually say it was Mickey Blue Eyes versus Edson Barbosa, and I was like, What? And they and then they cut to the story, you know, and I'm just like, okay, let's see how this goes. And the production is pretty good. The female lead, she's cute, he seems like a good dude. The story behind it, it's like okay, but then the next thing her name's Katrina Balden. Right, just for for reference. The next thing, he's very token, it's an action movie, yeah. 100%. But he's whatever, he's over in the Emirates teaching the Sheik jujitsu because he's the student of Henzo Gracie. I'm like, surely Henzo Gracie should be getting that gig. Like, I was just like, Yeah, but Henzo's I couldn't, yeah, he's busy, you know, he's fucking mastering. He's not in the streets in New York, but I I just couldn't, for me, I felt like I I cringed early. I'd it started well, and then I was like, oh, pain in my stomach. Yeah, so I I actually like when when it started, it starts opens with Taco in this documentary talking about you know his boy, and I was like, this is gonna be a really bad movie. Yeah, I was like, this is gonna be so bad, and it just made me and but but I had to but I had to put that aside, guys, because because you like uh famous cricketer Steve War always said you can't hit a six off every ball. That's true, and you know, B-grade movies have a place. Sure. You can't not every film can be Tarantino or fucking, you know. Sharknado III or Denis Villeneuve, you know, like we need we need the stuff, like they need the stepping stones for directors and writers and actors, of course, like in like actually, right? And so I'm like, I'm like, okay, no, fuck Taco, the Mexican guy with the auto workshop, it's okay, I'm cool with it. I accept it. Let's continue. Um, but it did, it did immediately kind of give you that smell of like, oh wow, I think we're in for a bit of cliche action here. Yes. Now, to that point, I mean, you know, if I'm if I'm looking back at the other action movies that we've mentioned in our you know, previous episodes, action movie reviews, you know, we're talking fucking uh Steven Segal, we're talking Chuck Norris, we're talking there's some generic shit, but the difference is that shit was made like 30 years ago, yeah. But before the USC in a lot of ways, yeah. So you didn't have a lot of footage of legit fights, you know, like if you're watching VHS tapes, unless you were into some gang shit or you were on the streets, you didn't get an opportunity to see a legit jujitsu guy fight a kickboxer. Yes, you know, that wasn't but my point there is more to more to the cliche piece where it's like that we were movies were cliche back then because that's all there was, right? Whereas, you know, you see that same level of cliche-ness now, and you're like, oh god, like like you know, where he meets the love interest on the plane, she falls asleep on his shoulder, yeah. He's oh shit, did I draw on you? And he's he's like, he's like, he's Mr. Perfect. He's too, he's too good. There is not one bad thing about him in the whole film, apart from his fucking hair, which well, yeah, but it's too perfect, and so this brings me to a fundamental question here, which is uh I'm sorry, how do we feel about writing a movie where you are not only the hero, but perfect? It just sounds like my autobiography joke. Well, I'm like, because I'm like, what a fuck, that's a bit of a wanker thing to do. And then I was like, wait, JT's probably writing a script right now, if not seven. I am, and yeah, and I'm sure and I'm sure it would be remiss of you to write one that isn't based around you. But I'm like, could you have not given yourself some flaw? One flaw be human. Yeah. And I well, I think it just indicates that this is not written by a great screenwriter, right? Like that's it's not it's not uh it's not Christopher Nolan, um, it's not Scorsese, it's a it's an action film with jujitsu. My only beef now I have many beefs with this film, but I'm not trying to trash it because I like you say you've got to give it some credit. There is legit jujitsu in there, but before the fight, if you intend to do MMA and you have a jujitsu background, if you come out to the the mat, the mat space, the ring, the cage, whatever you're fighting in, and you do a shoulder roll into like a side break fall. Oh yeah. That was not a cool fucking. Get the fuck out pre-fight ritual. Get the fuck out of there. Because that is nonsense. Like those little meant to be badass. You know, you bro. I feel I feel like a corny motherfucker doing it at training. When the coach says do it, do this and do that. Even a judo, do a side breakfall. I feel like judo chop. Lame, super lame. Could I I was like, oh, there's just stages in the film where I'm like, I can't. Like, for example, the Nemesis, right? Who's a legit fighter, you know, and and kickboxing it's like he's on the cover of all the magazines. Yeah, he's getting famous. This is Barboza's character, Barboza's character, Marco, Marco Blaine, which I mean, they could have given him a real much cooler Portugal. De Souza, yeah, right? Fucking one of those like five Portuguese names that we all know. Yeah, like uh Brazilian names. Yeah, we say like uh like a Carlos Almeida, yeah, bro. De Souza, yeah, Jackson, fucking yeah, it goes out. That's all that's them. You know, like you hear some of those amazing names from South America, and it's his name is Blaine. Yeah, he sounds like a 30-year-old white pickleball Californian. Blaine. Anyway, so that bit was like, I mean, obviously it's all implausible. The difficulty for me was also when they're at the restaurant and he's there with the girl in the dress, yeah, and he sees who's the guy he upsets. The is it is the guy Russian? Dimitri. No, he's Greek. He's Greek, yeah. Which I like that. I like classic, but he's got the coat, he kind of looks semi-he's a fur trader, right? Yeah, and I all the fucking Greeks are furnace. He looked like no, every Greek I ever met. He looked like a pimp. I was like, Yeah, he does, yeah. He looks kind of like anyway. I was like, mmm. Anyway, there's there's there's just some things in there that didn't drive with me. And I was like, get to the fights, I want the fucking action. And he does a slow-mo flying umber, and I was like, Oh, and the girl's like, Oh my god, did you still he told the truth? He beat them without punching them. Oh my god. And I'm like, why punch him? It's the MMA, right? But it's this philosophical thing about jujitsu and yeah, like I'm above that. Yeah, I'm not one of them. And I was like, oh fuck, yeah. I I so what was your take on that, Joe? If you're training jujitsu hard, you are sweating a bunch. When you're sweating a bunch, you are losing electrolytes, and just drinking water does not replenish that. What you find is that over time, you're just not getting the hydration. You need to train at a high level and to think clearly. Our favorite supplement for electrolytes is Sodi. It has a solid dose of magnesium, sodium, and potassium, and the flavors are great. We use it all the time when we train, and we're big fans of it. They sponsor the show. And if you want to get your hands on some, you can get 15% off if you go to sodi sodou i.com.au and use the code bulletproof15. Get yourself hydrated. Good fighting. Yeah, so let's talk about the fight scenes. Yes, let's talk about the fight scenes. I yeah, I give it I give it four and a half out of five for some of the jujitsu sequences. Not all of them. And and I'll get to I'll get to where I think they dropped the ball on this fundamentally in a moment. But you know, yeah, some of some of that stuff he does when he's in when he's fighting that MMA tournament, you're like pretty fucking cool sequences. Oh no, some good, there's some decent, like it's legit jujitsu. Yeah, when he when he fights the taekwondo instructor or the karate instructor, you know, that's cool. You know, he like he you know does the seatbelt or does the fucking gift wrap and takes the back and chokes him. I'm like, yeah, sick jujitsu in there. Um, I thought they could have they they could have laid that on heavier. I I think there could have been a lot more actual jujitsu in there. Yes. And be and and because some of the fight scenes were like, you know, the fight scenes are polished, but you know, there's scenes in the gym, right? It would have made sense to me. Like if if we're making a film where we all stand around a circle and jerk off about jujitsu, then why don't you put heaps of like b-roll footage of guys in the gym rolling, girls in the gym rolling, like people just going at it. Because you got all these fighters, like it's really you know, it would be easy to just get a bunch of extras who do jujitsu and go, hey, you guys, I just want competition rounds, and we're just gonna capture some shit. You're in the background, you know what I mean? Show me some real fucking rolling, some cool shit. Because there wasn't much of that. No, the reason here's the thing, folks. I I hate to see this, I hate to do this, but I'm I'm I'm gonna say it right now. I thought it was older than the 2021, whatever, because I felt like some of the training scenes in Never Back Down were better than this film, and I fucking hate Never Back Down. It is the corniest MMA movie of all time, it's terrible. I don't even like the plot, but they did they made an effort for there to be actual jujitsu in there, and you know, I like Digimon Sunon as an actor who plays like the fucking Mr. Miyogi of that movie. Anyway, long story short. When did that come out? Oh, it's like probably 20 fucking 14, 2015, like super cheesy, cheesy, terrible MMA movie, and the training in that was decent. Yeah, like the fighting sequences, some of the fighting sequences are pretty fake. You have like a couple era guy versus a kickboxer, but they you know they fucking beat the fuck out of each other in that film. I felt like there wasn't enough violence in this film. That's my take. Yeah, come on. You like the ultraviolence show. No, I would I would totally agree. And I mean, like, where's the broken leg? I mean, ultraviolence, yeah. Give me give me some more of that. I could take I rated, but I rated. Yeah, but but but but just give me give me the because we'll get to this in a second. Let me tell you where I think they drop they drop the ball hard on the fight thing. Please. The first fight that you see in the movie is just ridiculous. Yeah, it's the CCTV footage of when Taco's telling him the story about how they met, yeah, and it's like, oh man, I was working at the valet, you know, and this guy cut the line, and then he fucking cleaned them up, man. Like five guys, and it's the CCTV footage over like Dako telling the story. Yeah, and him. And it's like he like gets this guy in a front headlock and like boom, puts him to sleep, like holds it for a second, puts him to sleep. This guy, body lock, takedown, mount, and then somehow after he's mounted him, the guy goes unconscious, and then he's cleaning up these fights, and you're like, and they did it, they had a good idea. Let's do it as CCTV footage so it can be like a bit sketchy, yeah. You know, we don't have to like be too polished up. But I'm like, this is the opening fight scene. You are this is where you are introducing jujitsu and the whole premise of this shit to the audience, and you they did a better job of other fight scenes down the track, yeah. And so I'm like, why did you open with that one? Yeah, so that that's a drop-off. This uh this brings me this brings me to a point that I touched on there that I think we need to so you know you you're watching this film and you realize early on you're like okay, this movie wasn't made for the masses. No, this movie was made for jujitsu fanboys who who want to see jujitsu in a movie. Yeah, and and and there's there's certain moments where it is made very clear to you. The first moment is in the opening piece with Taco, yeah, where he says, where they ask him something about, and he says, you know, everybody they said, oh, she says, was Terry or whatever, was he really that good? Yeah, and that's what the interviewer says, and he responds, you know, everybody says like Hicks and Gracie showed Gianjou was the best fight of all time. Yeah, but you know, Daddy versus fucking Michael Blaine was was actually the one. And you're like, no one except us knows about Hicks and Gracie, and most of us haven't even seen it because there's no footage of the fucking fight, it's a story from Hickson. Yes, you're like, if my sister watched this movie, she doesn't get that reference. No, so then that immediately tells me I've just made this movie for grapplers. So if you're making it for me, you gotta do a good job. Like, you gotta convince, you gotta give me more of the thing that I'm into. Yes, you know, and look, I think the thing that because this is framed as a early 90s genre film, right? Even though it's made more recently, the quality on it is quite good across the board. Like the way it's made and sequenced, and it's it's easy to watch. Yeah, the production value is there, but man, when you have seen one of the Rotolo brothers just beat the shit out of someone on one FC, I I kind of want to see that. I want to, I want to see someone jump on someone and like I I the problem is for all of us out there, if you're a fan of the UFC or even early, you know, pride or whatever, it doesn't matter if you're old school, new school, and you're into fighting, you do want to see some shit. You want to see someone get slammed. Someone, it's some here's the thing, folks. It's kind of like illegal behind closed doors, they're in like a tent, it's a ring, it's kind of dingy. There's rich people betting, or kind of got a bit of it's a bit of a wrong bet homage there. There is there's some references to early 90s, like backstreet, you know, illegal gambling, like fighting to the death shit. Um, and so in that way, it's like, oh but I don't know if Edson Barbosa's jujitsu is worse in real life compared to in the movie, because that motherfucker cannot defend a real naked joke. I fucking tell you, I was losing my mind. I was like, is this how it goes? Like he's just like looking tough. I'm like, defend yourself, bitch. Oh what joke, tell me. Well, let's go to the the finale to fight. Like well, yeah. I mean, well, you know, I don't it's like we know he knows basic jujitsu. He fight he's fucking he's an accomplished UFC fighter. Yes, he's got some shit. So you're like, and and uh, you know, we've both worked on film sets. It's it's not just it's very it's actually very hard to to reproduce a thing. But you're like, surely we could have done a better job of actually letting letting the reins off a little, like, hey, maybe just scrap a little bit, like yeah, hey, just give me some grappling, like start in this position, like positional or whatever. Make it look a bit more like real. Show me some fucking because it was all you could tell it was like set muscles aren't contracted, no, people are moving slowly. It was all very sequential, yeah. You know, whereas jujitsu is like sweat, fucking fast movements, erratic shit, yeah, fucking pump, squeezing, yeah, like sweat gets round to the back and the kind of that suplex slam spot, whatever. Yeah, and his face is like but his arms are like flaccid. Little bit. Like yeah, so yeah, that so that thing, right? I felt like that was an insult. Yeah. I I and I felt like that was an insult because, like I said before, if you're making the film for me, yeah, you you gotta give me that thing that I'm here for. Who's the director? The director is um his name is Alex uh Ranarivello. Okay, he listened to who co-wrote it, I believe, with Sean Patrick Flannery. You fucked up because you wrote this for Joey and you fucked up. Joey's not impressed, your mum's upset. Fucking what's going on? So there was a couple of there was a couple of funny references in there which I thought about. He turns up kind of like um, kind of like a bit of a god at the end. He turns and you're like, and he's like, and he's like about to fight and shit, and then he's like, oh shit, Henzo, and then Henzo's like, hey fuck, especially, you know, and then he's like, oh brother, and it's like and you and you know, Henzo's looking good and shit. He looks great, he's given great reverence, and I respect fuck out of Henzo Gracie. I have a great story about him from ADCC. I've full respect to Henzo Gracie, he he's a legend. But I wondered, did he put some money on this film? Like well, did he produce this film? Well, this this this comes around, right? Because and and I'm gonna um I'm gonna arrive at a point here. Okay, please. But there's another there's another reference, which is did you notice the words on the shirt of the villains team of Edson Barboza's team? No, no, I didn't even. Luta Livre. Oh were they all wearing belts? Right. Were they all just wearing belts over top of their casual team? Livre, these leg locking motherfuckers. If you don't know the the the OGs story of the fucking, you know, the myth, the mythical sort of story of jujitsu in from Brazil is that the Gracies had jujitsu, but then there was this other freestyle wrestling submission grappling called Luta Livre, and they had a great rivalry. And the Luta Livre guys, like a lot of catch wrestlers, were good at leg locks, yeah, and that's why jujitsu was like leg locks are a dirty technique. Yeah. Because these luta livre guys keep catching us with them. So there's always been this thing of like they are the other and they are their scum, right? Evil. So so that I found that very fucking funny and interesting. There's obviously the mention of Hicks and Gracie's fight being the best fight ever of all time, right? Um and so this leads me to think was this film, and guys, we live in an hour propaganda Gracie propaganda. Gracie propaganda! Was this simply just a marketing, a PR piece for the Gracie family? Now, now did we go back in the comments and check who said, Joe, did you realize that Born and Champion is the greatest jujitsu film of all time? Signed off. It was actually Henzo in the comments. You're like, what? We've been fucking psy-offed by Henzo Gracie. What the fuck? I mean, you you know, they put a fucking memo out to all the family, and they're like, guys, we need you to tell all your sons and their sons and their sons to get on the internet right now and fucking prop this film up. So, but so if it were a piece of propaganda, here's what I would I was surprised to have not seen. There was not one mention of the Gracie Diet. There was not one scene of the main character either a studying Portuguese, or because he's a gringo, yep, and this is a rite of passage for all jujitsu players at Blue Belt, true, um, or dating a Brazilian woman, true, right? And then the third part, there was not one moment where we see anyone bowing to a picture of Master. And so I'm like, fuck, maybe if it was a piece of propaganda, maybe they dropped off. Maybe. Oh my goodness. Look, I I give uh I give I give full props to um Sean Patrick Flannery. Oh sorry, sorry, last thing, last thing. This is where we know that it is of what it is because the at the end there's a tribute and it's words on the screen, which is uh it's a letter from him saying, declaring to the viewer, this film is a love letter to jujitsu. Jiu Jitsu's, you know, done a bunch of wonderful things in my life, and here are all the people that are pivotal in that Henzo Gracie, John Danaher, you know, a bunch of bunch of folks. Um, and basically he's he just then seals the deal saying that this movie's all about how much I love jujitsu. And so you're like, yes, this wraps it all up nicely with a bow. Um, whether propaganda or or or an actual an honest tribute, uh, you could be the judge. Yeah. But I I I give props to uh Sean Patrick Flannery for you know showcasing jujitsu and for having the balls to fucking write a thing and star in it and do all that. Mate, it's you it's a it's a huge achievement to create something. So look, I'm I'm I don't want to be a hater in terms of just being literally sitting here on a couch, being an armchair kind of critique. It's more that the um the appreciation of jujitsu. We make this podcast because we fucking love jujitsu, right? Like it's all for the love. We're right here circle jerking too. That's right, that's right. We are uh guys, watch the film and then let us know what you think. Yeah. Peace. Peace.