Emily Moritmer stars as Laura Black, left, and Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Mike Terry in the film, "Redbelt." (AP Photo/Sony Pictures Classics, Lorey Sebastian)

It sounds like a jarring combination at first -- until you learn that Mamet holds a purple belt in jiujitsu.

Then you realize while watching "Redbelt" that many tenets of the sport -- control, manipulation and one-upmanship -- jibe perfectly with themes that the playwright/director/screenwriter has explored for decades in some of his best-known works, such as the plays "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Speed-the-Plow."

And so "Redbelt" makes sense in its own weird way: a mix of sports-flick cliches and Mamet's patented rat-a-tat writing. It's "Rocky," it's "The Karate Kid" -- only with more stylized, rhythmic dialogue.

Several Mamet regulars show up (Ricky Jay, Joe Mantegna, David Paymer and Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon), which does put us in somewhat comfortable territory. But it's Chiwetel Ejiofor ("Dirty Pretty Things"), the film's star, who commands our attention. As the unflappably moral, normally placid jiujitsu instructor Mike Terry, Ejiofor is both attractive and warm, fierce and intimidating.

A series of strangely intertwined events forces Mike into the ring, a place he's never wanted to be, to fight for $50,000. Among the players pushing him into battle are his sexpot wife (Alice Braga), a jittery lawyer (Emily Mortimer), an aging movie star (Tim Allen), a producer (Mantegna), a loan shark (Paymer) and a shady fight promoter (Jay).

Mike and his wife, Sondra, are already struggling to maintain their West Los Angeles studio at a time when the more violent Ultimate Fighting and mixed martial arts are in vogue. A shattered front window, the result of an accidental gunshot, puts them further in debt. Then a chance encounter at a bar with Allen's Chet Frank seems to turn their financial troubles around.

In no time, Mike is visiting Chet on the set and talking about receiving a producing credit, and Sondra, a fabric designer, is working with Chet's wife, Zena (Pidgeon) on a clothing line.

Could all this happen so quickly? And could it all disappear just as fast? Probably not. But something has to get Mike into the ring for The Big Showdown. Even though the championship match doesn't play out exactly the way you've seen it before, it still adheres to the same hackneyed conventions. And the final moment, which was probably intended to be poignant, instead feels laughable.

"Redbelt" is also overly familiar in its serious, "Crash"-like collision of disparate Los Angeles denizens, tied together by fate.

By Christy Lemire / Associated Press