Fighting

Small-town boy Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum) trawls the streets of New York, selling counterfeit goods to make ends meet. But when a scam artist (Terence Howard) takes him under his wing and uncovers his talent for street-fighting, MacArthur is plunged into a merciless world, where the rich bet huge amounts of money and the brawlers are treated as disposable commodities. Can he escape?

David Denby, The New Yorker: Tatum, a tall, lean, abs-enhanced former model, makes Shawn an awfully nice fellow - a mass of gentle, hurting, inarticulate impulses. The movie seems calculated to appeal not just to teenage boys but to teenage girls, too, which would be fine if the hero snarled a bit - if he weren't set up so unconvincingly as a polite, diffident country boy. Channing Tatum has more grit than such other angel-faced actors as Orlando Bloom, Zac Efron, and the goofy Ashton Kutcher, but, at the moment, he seems like a greater Josh Hartnett rather than a lesser Paul Newman. Yet, even if the movie is as fake as a fight picture, it's still a decent commercial entertainment.

Wendy Ide, the Times: There are no surprises here - this is a story that has been told before, many times. But Tatum gives us a glimpse of the charisma that could make him a star and New York demonstrates yet again that there are few cities more cinematic. (Verdict: three stars out of five) ·