Direction: the director Gavin O’Connor has put out a pretty good movie about sports and family drama, but the thing which is portrayed very clearly in the film is the need for two brothers to win a tournament and that need has reached such a point that they even went to fight each other for the prize money, also there is a family drama which along with the needs pushed the characters harder.
The back story and side story of the characters are what makes the audience feel the character’s pain and how little time they have to earn money.
Acting: the English actor Tom Hardy and Aussie actor Joel Edgerton did a great job and expressing the emotions a character can feel during tough times. Tom looks at his brother as a betrayer as he left tom and his mother to be with his girlfriend and tom went with his mom who later died of cancer both the brothers equally hate their dad and you can feel this emotion in every dialogue/monologue.
Cinematography: the cage scenes are awesome with the in-ring cameras but can’t really say anything new cause in Hollywood it has always been this great nothing special though except the change in camera filters to show the side story and back story
Script: it is a pretty straight forward script about winning and an MMA tournament and winning the prize money However the interesting thing is two brothers take part in this tournament and eventually the final match is in between them. Younger brother Tom hates his elder brother Brendan as he abandoned their family and stayed with his girlfriend and Tom moved with his mom who later died of Cancer. Both the brothers hate their dad equally. Tom was in US Marines and promised a friend’s widow to take care of them so he needs to get the prize money whereas Brendon needs to pay hospital bills for his daughter and pay for the house so he goes to the tournament as well, also we get to know that both brothers used to practice and fight in MMA tournaments in earlier days.
