A young street vendor on 6th Avenue has a run in with some street punks. Little do these scum bags know who they're messing with. Shawn MacArthur is a Southern boy now making New York his home; he is trying to make a living. Unknown to him, the tough guys are connected with a hustler, Harvey Boarden, who likes to think of himself as a fight promoter. Boarden likes to discover talented young men that are willing to fight other young men. The main objective for the fights is the money that can be made because, although illegal, these matches attract high betting people.

Shawn agrees to fight for Harvey. He proves he is someone to be reckoned with. He falls for a young Hispanic girl, Zulay, working in a club where the fighting crowd hangs out. At the club Shawn also meets Evan Hailey, who knows him from his Alabama youth. It appears Shawn's father was a fighting coach who trained him, as well as Evan, who is also making a name for himself in the illegal fighting area. Shawn and Evan are connected to a big fight with a large purse. Harvey figures that by betting against Shawn he will stand to make a bundle. Zulay, the girl that places the bets for Harvey, has another thing in mind. In an ironic twist, Shawn and Zulay show the world they were a winning combination all along, to Harvey's surprise.

We watched this film on the basis of having seen director Dito Montiel's previous movie, "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints", which also featured Channing Tatum, the star of this new picture. Mr. Montiel also co-wrote the screenplay with Robert Munic, a man that has worked on television. The film has surprises for viewers that go into without any expectations. "Fighting" shows another side of New York not often seen, like the illegal fighting, and the locations in which Stefan Czapsky captures locations most people never get to see.

Channing Tatum makes a credible fighter. He is a young actor with a lot of promise, as shown here. The excellent Terrence Howard, one of the best actors of his generation working in movies, impresses with his take of Harvey Boarden. Beautiful Zulay Henao is the love interest of Shawn. Luis Guzman doesn't have much to do. Altagracia Guzman, who was the grandmother in "Raising Ramon Vargas", has a few delightful scenes as Zulay's grandma.

"Fighting" was a surprise thanks to Dito Montiel's vision.

The low critics are coming from the wrong audience, who expected a fight movie with a lot of action. this is a well acted drama, the title 'fighting' is about the fights of life everybody has to struggle with. fight scenes all in all not more than 8 minutes. the dialogues and the situations are very realistic, so that people who have been in similar situation and trying to survive in the streets will appreciate this movie.

Fighting offers a very little actual plot here, besides the contrived narrative that strings together the various fight sequences. It's so forced and implausible that we're never drawn into the story at all. Each fight is in a distinct setting, and each has its own painful brutality to it. Alas, the climactic rooftop showdown is rather dull; much better is the marble hallway brawl against a kinetic Asian opponent . he has four fights throughout the entire film which is not many considering that the title is called "Fighting". Though some were pretty good it wasn't that good. The last fight was the best and had the most point and story.

The best thing about the film is Tatum's interaction with Howard, who offers a full-on, layered performance that actually makes the whole film worth seeing. The heart of the film is the relationship between these two men, but the script seems afraid to explore it in any real depth. Instead, it tilts toward the unconvincing romance between Shawn and Zulay. As noted by others, the acting is pretty bad and the dialogue doesn't help much either. The film was also very predictable through.

Also the characters ween't very developed at all. We barely know anything about the main characters. For the majority of the film, the only thing we know about Shawn's past is that he left Birmingham to escape Daddy issues, but there's so little depth to the character otherwise. We learn the most about Shawn when he runs into Evan Bailey (Brian White), an arrogant acquaintance from his past, and you can immediately figure out where things are going to go, confirmed 45 minutes later after that initial meeting with the revelation that Evan is an extreme fighter,. We also don't know much about Harvey. At first it seemed like he was a bad guy and wanting to scam Shawn but throughout the film he seems to be on his side. ============ As a rewatch (06/20/18'), Fighting is a certain film with more depth as it grows. Upon initial watch, opinions have changed over the years. The film is more so a slow based drama than a strictly fighting film, which is a main reason for panning from critics and fans. Rating changed from 3 to 7. Recommend for fans willing to give the film another chance. Although with its flaws, the film has a steady pace and grows upon several watches.