In his recent, attention-getting Village Voice article proclaiming himself to no longer be a "brain-dead liberal", David Mamet chided those who fail to appreciate how great it is here in the land of the free and who sit around trying to think up reasons to be dissatisfied with democratic capitalism, just so they can have something to be sore about. In Redbelt, Smiley Mamet's latest stab at writing and directing a movie, the hero, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, is a hard-working, incorruptable black man who's trying his damndest to make an honest living running a martial-arts academy that does its bit for society by training police officers in methods of self defense. But when we meet him, he's already in danger of going out of business, and then evil Hollywood types steal his technique of pitting combatants against each other after selecting one to be "handicapped" for the bout. Robbed of the only thing he has that may have monetary value so that these sharks can cheapen it by using it in circus-like arena ring competitions, he's ultimately reduced to agreeing to compete in one of the bouts in hopes of at least winning some prize money, and then he discovers that the contests are fixed. ("Whenever two guys are fighting for money," mewls the crooked promoter played by Ricky Jay, "the fight is never fair.") Does Mamet ever see any of the plays and movies he signs his name to, or is he so committed to the capitalist system that he has a bunch of cranks hired off park benches staffing a sweatshop where they grind this stuff out by the yard?

Chiwetal Ejifor brings his role a strong presence and the ability to convey complex thought and emotional storms going on beneath a placid surface. He deserves a lot of credit for not appearing ridiculous when his character pounds away at the jujitsu formula that appears to be his all-purpose mantra for life: "There is no situation you can't escape from. There is no situation you can't turn to your advantage." The movie only leaves him completely out to dry once, when Mamet, letting his hand (and his woman problem) show all too nakedly, has him bestow these wise words on a woman (Emily Mortimer) who's been raped, while demonstrating that with more skill and determination, she could have fought off her attacker. Although Mortimer is required to make a full-blown crazy-broad entrance, twitchy and paranoid and all but frothing at the mouth, it turns out that she's the movie's Good Woman; after Ejifor starts telling her what to do, she shuts her yap and gratefully concentrates on supporting him, while Ejifor's wife (Alice Braga), a "Brazilian princess" who worries about her business and dares to have doubts about whether her husband's noble principles will be enough to keep the lights turned on, throws in her lot with the rotten show business people who are conspiring against him. They include Tim Allen, insanely cast as a tough-guy movie star with a bad haircut, and Joe Mantegna, all too perfectly cast as the movie star's slimeball manager, who gives you the feeling that he could produce a line of male body oils from his pores and market it under the brand name "Dishonestee'." Having used these guys to establish that the world is totally rigged and everything's phony, Mamet then turns around and flatters the audience by insisting that the ticket-buying rubes the world over will still notice and appreciate true quality when they see it; when Ejifor and a bad guy get into a tussel in the corridor leading to the stage of the big fight, every head in the place ignores the glitz they've paid to get in to see and swivels to pay attention to the true jujitsu master in action. Mamet himself is the show-business equivalent of one of those politicians who've spent twenty-five years in Congress screaming about how you need to keep re-electing him in order to send a message to those out-of-touch Washington insiders.