Knuckledust [Digital]
Oddly enough, the movie’s title is one word but the titular club is actually two words, as shown on logos within the club itself. Even here it has each word coloured differently, but still conjoined.
When you see a movie titled ‘Knuckledust’, what do you think? The first thing that comes to my mind is that this is gonna be a cool action movie with plenty of fighting, and I expect that’s likely what comes to most peoples’ minds, too. The synopsis reads:
“Police discover an elite fight club with seven underground levels filled with the dead bodies of brawlers from around the world. Only one man is left alive, and they must figure out if he's truly the lone survivor -- or a vicious mass murderer.”
This further adds to that idea, that there’s gonna be tonnes of fighting. The whole “seven underground levels” aspect gives off some The Raid or Game of Death vibes, with fights spanning across floors, but in actuality there’s very little fighting at all. Instead, the majority of the movie takes place in a police station, as the “lone survivor” is being interrogated.
Now, don’t get me wrong - there are some fight scenes. In fact, the movie begins with guys fighting to the death in an illegal underground fight club known as Knuckle Dust. There’s some shady goings on in terms of huge bets being made and fights being thrown, but not much of the fights are actually visible due to an abundance of cuts.
We are introduced to a wide variety of characters with some nice neon lettering that mirrors the style of the intro to the movie. It works really well to make each character’s name stick in your head, as there are a fair few characters to try and remember here. Seen below, in order we have: Miss Serena, Tick Tock, Jeremiah and finally our main man Hard Eight and his opponent Rawbone.
Tick Tock, who is dressed in a cowboy style, was wasted as both an actor and a character. Played by parkour pioneer Sebastien Foucan, you see absolute minimum of his skills and his character seems very out of place as there is no backstory to him or his style. This can actually be said for many of the characters designs, who all seem to juxtapose each other - and whether this is done purposefully as a stylistic choice or for some other reason, it feels like you’re out of the loop for most things, and feel no emotional attachment to characters. One of our favourite characters by far was “Not Now” Nigel, who was consistent in his hilarious manner and in how he was regularly brushed off by other characters - leading to a bit of an outburst at one point.
The number of characters could have been reduced to allow for more focus on some of the more important aspects of the plot, as trying to digest things whilst wondering where some characters have disappeared to, whilst also contending with the frequent jumping back and forward between current time and flashbacks makes for a confusing mess. Seeing characters and their interactions with each other would have given the movie a bit more heart, but due to the many twists this was likely difficult to implement without giving the game away.
The acting, whilst at times awkward, was generally decent - particularly from Moe Dunford and Jaime Winston on the more serious side (while they did both have some funny moments too); and Chris Patrick-Wilson and James Kermack (the writer/director) pulled their weight with the quips. There was a lot of humour throughout Knuckledust, which I feel would have been a better angle to stick with as the over-the-top dialogue at times clashes with the more serious segments. We see some fighters in bondage gear, including latex and strap-ons, where we thought we were gonna lean right into the comedy, but again due to the jump-cuts we don’t get to see the full effect of the fight scene - and with an obvious nod to Oldboy’s famous corridor scene, it just doesn’t land as well as we’d hoped. One scene that was obviously intended to be funny just made me cringe so incredibly hard, but I’ll just let you see that for yourself. And yes, you’ll know exactly what scene I mean.
Fight choreography is hard to pull off whilst looking authentic, so going all in on the comedy vibe and making things more cartoonish would have probably helped a huge deal here, as many of the choices made for the fights would be easier to forgive on that front. We might be influenced by our recent watching of Kung Fu Hustle, but there was just a lack of impact for the fight scenes that could have been negated. I mean, the strap-ons were funny in the context of a fight but before you even get a chance to see anything - cut.
In the end, we decided to give Knuckledust the Collecting Asylum rating of 5/10.
Have you seen Knuckledust yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Samuel Goldwyn Films for the Knuckledust review copy!
Knuckledust is available digitally in the UK from today, 11th December.
