Halle Berry makes her directorial debut this month with the feature film, Bruised, which premiered on Netflix and yes, it’s one that you should check out. The film is not bad for a first-time director and someone who cast themselves as the lead so I want to start this review by giving “props” to Halle Berry for making a good film her first time in the director’s chair even if it’s not perfect. The story centers on a former MMA fighter who, after going undefeated has a panic attack and loses a big fight that brings her world crushing down as she was one of the top female UFC fighters. Her life is in shambles. She’s cleaning houses for a living and deals with a terrible manager and boyfriend who essentially is ruining her career, while at the same time having to be a parent to a 6-year-old boy that she gave up. Halle Berry shines as a UFC fighter. You can definitely tell, she put in a lot of work trying hard to look the part. The action scenes were incredible and made you feel like you were in the cage with Halle Berry. I don’t think it’s the best movie ever made about UFC fighters, but certainly, a gripping story that makes you watch all the way to the end so you see what happens with his character, especially her shot at redemption in the cage.

There have been UFC movies before, movies about Fighters looking for another chance that can’t help but inspire the audience. When I think of those kinds of movies, I always go back to Warrior with Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy, a great movie that will bring tears to your eyes by the end. Bruised is not that movie, if you like Warrior then you will like this movie, but you’ll also realize that where is the better UFC story. That’s okay because Bruised doesn’t have to be as good to not be as gritty and emotional. I definitely enjoyed this movie and love what Halle Berry did with it. Not only did she shine through her physicality as a UFC fighter, but she does make you feel for her character who seems to have been wronged in life at every turn and uses MMA as a way to escape her circumstances. The cast is wonderful and the has a Rocky-esque quality to it, but at the same time, it does have a feel of a perfect movie for Netflix, something you probably wouldn’t go to the theater to see unless you just wanted to see the action on the big screen. Half the movie is about the main character trying to reconnect to her son especially if she tries to get him into school and doesn’t know how to do that and then the relationship with her trainer if she is given a title shot where everybody thinks she’s going to lose. It feels like a familiar story and like we have seen this before in sport’s movies, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it feels familiar, almost as if it’s a recycled storyline, I don’t know if it has the same emotional weight as watching Rocky or Warrior.

Here’s what I didn’t like about the movie. Sometimes it feels uneven floating between scenes of her trying to reconnect as a mother to scenes of her training. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out which relationship is more important, the relationship with her trainer or the relationship with her son. There are times, it feels unbalanced until it gets to the end of the movie with the big fight, but despite all that, there is a big payoff in the end. The fight is incredible and ends the way it should end.   I feel in a lot of ways that ends perfectly and has that awe-inspiring, emotional moment that you’re looking for so that you don’t think it’s just a movie about women fighters. However, it’s a movie where you need to cram in a love scene because this movie isn’t about the main character finding love again and only to be abandoned again.  This movie is about her relationship with her son and getting her shot at Redemption. Love stories are fine in movies, but sometimes they get crammed in just to have a love story when it’s unnecessary. I understand what the filmmakers were going for, but sometimes the best stories are the ones that you keep simple and for the main character, the best story is her relationship with her son and getting back into the cage while proving that she’s not a loser.  But a more important story than a love story is having to deal with a pill-popping mother who clearly didn’t care for her daughter when she was young. The movie is a little over 2 hours and if you take out some of the necessary stuff it would have been a much more balanced movie. You could have cut out about 20 minutes, which would have made the movie better.

However, despite all of my critiques, it’s still a good movie and Halle Berry does a great job in her directorial debut. She definitely shows that she can direct a good and gritty movie that will keep you entertained and on the edge of your seat, as well as playing a fighter when she’s in her 50s. I think that’s great because it proves that women are still gorgeous and sexy as hell in their 50s. It also proves for all the misogynistic assholes in Hollywood that women aren’t done after their 20s. Older women should still get leading roles. It’s a good movie to watch on Netflix, the action and the fight scenes are top-notch. We may have seen this kind of movie before, but it doesn’t matter, it’s not hard to connect to the characters and enjoy the action. Everything that we like about fighting movies is in this film, so you won’t be disappointed. And who knows, maybe we’ll get a sequel that’s reminiscent of Rocky 2 where the character has to deal with becoming a champion and raising a family. I definitely enjoyed Halle Berry in this movie, and you will too as well as the rest of the cast including Valentina Shevchenko, who plays a version of herself as the rival UFC fighter. Bruised is worth a watch on Netflix!