Redbelt ( *** )

99 minutes

In theaters May 9, 2008

Rating: R, Drama

Redbelt is a fight flick. And a might flick. But it's as much about right as it is about fight or might.

The world the film is set in is that of jujitsu and mixed martial arts. But it really could be any pursuit in which one principled individual tries to stick to those principles and not compromise while corruption is in evidence everywhere around him.

Redbelt's noirish story focuses on the behavior of a jujitsu master and teacher in Los Angeles, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who operates a self-defense studio and both teaches and lives by the samurai code.

Although an accomplished martial artist, he has avoided the prizefighting circuit because he believes -- and teaches -- that competition lessens the person: integrity is what matters and avoiding dishonor is paramount. So he doesn't teach his students to compete, but to prevail.

But when events conspire to back him into a corner -- that is, when he's conned by several disreputable players in the movie business -- he's forced to step back into the ring and face even more corruption than he imagined was taking place all around him.

Like most David Mamet projects, Redbelt (the title referring to jujitsu's highest honor) is both intelligent and intense, with his sure, cynical, more-sober-than-usual voice evident in not only the subject matter but all the choices he makes. As someone who trained in the martial arts for five years, Mamet lets us know instantly that he knows whereof he writes, but he also makes us aware that his movie is about any individual fighting against any institution -- say, just to pick one, Hollywood moviemaking with the art-versus-commerce dilemmas that directors like Mamet must negotiate.

Chiwetel Ejiofor's lead performance is so strong, so commanding as the stubborn but admirable purist, it not only anchors the whole enterprise but lifts it right up onto his able shoulders. Ejiofor has been doing great work for years, in such films as Dirty Pretty Things, Talk to Me, Inside Man, and Kinky Boots, and he deserves to be recognized as one of the finest screen actors working.

And he's nimbly supported by a capable ensemble that includes Alice Braga, Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay, Emily Mortimer, David Paymer, and Tim Allen playing against type in a fully serious role.

As for writer-director Mamet (House of Games, Heist, State and Main, The Winslow Boy, The Spanish Prisoner), still best known as a distinctive and accomplished playwright, his movie resume keeps quietly growing with another fine entry that smoothly blends extensive reflective drama with limited martial arts action.

While we may not buy or fully comprehend the motives of every character on display, we appreciate the accumulation of forces that Mamet concocts, in perhaps slightly too convoluted a way, to reveal the protagonist's character.

There's a sadness and a wistfulness that permeates the samurai spirit-celebrating screenplay and it remains through the film's unusual and farfetched but somehow still effective climax.

David Mamet's mindful and muscular drama about trying to live the honorable life in a world in which betrayal is commonplace is a martial arts flick that artistically marshals its troops.