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Ya just gotta love Michael Madsen -- he's America's onscreen tough guy. And you gotta love Vinnie Jones, 'cause he's England's (or, in this case, for both of them, Ireland's). But no one says you gotta love Mark Mahon, the dickhead writer/producer/director who somehow got these two rockin' sockin' dudes and put them in a cheap Irish knockoff of any American Kung Fu or whatever-kind-you-want fighting flick from the 80's (and earlier).

The case in this go-around is that Sean (Madsen) has a little son that does nothing besides sit around, be cute, say "I love you, Daddy," and have a terminal health condition that Madsen's only hope to fix is by winning the prize money of a local Irish trailer trash bare-knuckle brawl, meaning he has to fight and win against the uber-bad "Smasher" (Jones).

Sean promised his late wife that he'd never fight again after he killed his sparring partner in an awkwardly casual looking sparring session somehow with a lucky uppercut that most fighters would dismiss as a stroke of bad luck instead of some viciously powerful arm, but it's okay, because he gets the chance to cry before her grave and explain that he "has no choice" (Madsen isn't a shitty actor, and his Irish accent surprisingly holds up, but this scene of no-tears bawling is embarrassing for everyone).

Sean gets brought into the match by a young fighter who's also in the big tournament and tells Sean that he sees him as "the father he never had" the night before he himself has to fight Vinnie Jones. Guess what happens to him. Guess what happens to the little kid. Guess who wins in the end. Guess if there's a bunch of contrived crap everywhere in this sick puppy. You can guess, but you don't have to, you've seen this flick a hundred times, only now it's in the trailer park of the old country instead of Philly (or 8 Mile, or wherever the hell the down-and-out white guy has put us through this story a hundred times before... with often better results).

Another import this year that suffered from its maker relying too much on his American video collection he grew up on instead of his gut and artistic ability was "This is England." However, "England" at least brought enough to the table to demonstrate that the writer/director may amount to a wholly original flick one day. This thing is recycled crap. Granted, it can be a guilty pleasure of recycled crap at times, like when Vinnie Jones hams it up in his Cobra Kai-like "bad guy who's just bad 'cause he's bad for the mere sake of being bad" role, or when a random horse awkwardly crosses in front of Sean's car while a terrrribly lame emo song about how some chick wants to be like "the wild horses, roaming free" after he's come back from leaving his home in a scene where the song plays so long and loud that you're either laughing too hard or just begging someone to turn the song off so much that you don't even remember what the hell the scene is about.

Bottom line, if you must see a fighting flick that's out in theaters, why not, it's not harmful to see this, as, again, ya gotta love Madsen and Vinnie Jones. But if you're looking for some quality entertainment, you may wanna just watch an ant battle instead. The only tragedy here is that Madsen and Jones are cool and so was this idea for an indie flick about a fighting contest. If only Mahon had put his idea before his ego and told it to someone with a talent for writing, then someone with a knack for directing, THEN said he'd be the producer (which he's due SOME credit for, seeing as how he did at least get a decent cast involved), there may have been a good, even great, movie here. But there, um... yeah, there's just not. Even the title is a line from "Gladiator," for Christ's sake.
 
(two bongs, one for Michael and one for Vinnie -- sorry guys, you deserve better)

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