The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)

For some odd reason I had high hopes for The Man with the Iron Fists, must have been my excitement at the break of Russell Crowe's two year film hiatus, as the stellar The Last Three Days way back in 2010 was the last film we saw him in.  Also I've had a soft spot for some of Crowe's more "out of the box" roles, with films like The Quick and the Dead and A Good Year, atypical Crowe films that sit among my Top favorites.  With The Man with the Iron Fists I was hoping for sort of a oriental version of the The Quick and the Dead, instead what I found was a jumbled mess with a good performance by Crowe, and a few decent action scenes.

Rapper RZA makes his directorial and screenplay debut in the sort of modernized version of a bad 60's Kung Fu B-movie with a 15 million dollar budget.  I love B-movies, but one sub-genre I've never been able to accrue much interest in is Kung Fu.  The plot of the film is woefully simple.  RZA is the lowly Blacksmith, a highly talented artist of iron who fashions together weapons for every warring clan in the village that ultimately leads to mass destruction.  The last clan standing, lead by Silver Lion, take possession of the Emperor's gold which is being transported through the city and the Blacksmith and a couple other characters are left stuck in the middle fighting for honor and revenge.

Russell Crowe plays Jack Knife, easily one of the more interesting and animated characters of the film.  With his rotating knife/gun, and his quick tempered wit his character brings a little life into a film that for the most part is rather dull.  The rest of the cast is either mind-numbingly stale or in the case of Silver Lion simply lame.  The story-line is rarely interesting and reads worse than a comic book, most of the time it's in-cohesive and while the action sequences are a plenty, they're nothing to write home about.

It's a shame The Man with the Iron Fists has to be Russell Crowe's first return to the silver screen in two years, it's undoubtedly not going to be much of a feather in an already longstanding hat of stellar films.  Granted in this film he's the standout performance, it doesn't save this from mostly being a flashy mediocre action film that's supposed to be funny but garnered more yawns than laughs from the theater I was in (a couple people even eventually got tired and left).  I understand why Russell took the role as he's good friends with RZA, whose had small roles in a few of his past films, but most people aren't going to be aware of that relationship and simply think Russell must really be hurting for work.

Overall, while The Man with the Iron Fists might not be much of the average movie-goers cup of tea, it will undoubtedly have it's small band of followers.  If you're into the Kung Fu genre I imagine you'll get a kick out of this film to some extent.  It's not going to be a box office money maker but it will not likely to lose any money seeing the budget was only 15 million, and I'll give them credit, in terms of the set design and special effects they made that 15 million go a pretty long way.  In the end, The Man with the Iron Fists is nothing I'd recommend most people go see as it's got a limited appeal.  If you're a Russell Crowe completest like myself be sure to buy some popcorn and soda to help keep you awake at times, and go in with low expectations, and maybe you'll come out liking it.  For me at least it was better than Kung Fu Hustle. :shutters:

5/10