Opening this Friday is director Dito Montiel’s (“A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints”) new movie “Fighting”. The film stars Channing Tatum, Terrence Howard, Brian White, Luis Guzmán and Zulay Henao.

As you’ve probably seen in the commercials or in these movie clips, the film tells the all too familiar story of someone getting pulled into the dark underbelly of New York City. Here’s the synopsis:

The film is about a small-town boy named Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum) who has come to New York City with nothing.  Barely earning a living selling counterfeit goods on the streets, his luck changes when scam artist Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard) sees that he has a natural talent for streetfighting.  When Harvey offers Shawn help at making the real cash, the two form an uneasy partnership.

As Shawn’s manager, Harvey introduces him to the corrupt bare-knuckle circuit, where rich men bet on disposable pawns.  Almost overnight, he becomes a star brawler, taking down professional boxers, mixed martial arts champs and ultimate fighters in a series of staggeringly intense bouts.  But if Shawn ever hopes to escape the dark world in which he’s found himself, he must now face the toughest fight of his life.

While this film isn’t going to offer the genre anything new, it does have a few solid fight scenes and when I saw it with a big crowd a few weeks back, the audience was very vocal while watching and they seemed to really enjoy it.

Anyway, to help promote the film, I recently got to speak with Channing Tatum. During our time we discussed what 2009 is going to be like for him as he has a few movies coming out, what it was like to work with Dito Montiel again, filming in New York City, and, of course, we talked about “G.I. Joe”.

While I haven’t been able to write anything on the site yet…I went to the set of “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” last year and Channing remembered me and talked about what I saw while I was there. Since I can’t write about it, I’ll let Channing do the talking.

Finally, I’m on the ever growing world of Twitter. And here are my video interviews with Terrence Howard and Zulay Henao.

Channing Tatum

·         I ask if he remembers me from being on the set of GI JOE

·         What is it like looking at 2009 for him as he has a lot of movies

·         Was he ever nervous getting into the ring to film the fight scenes

·         What was it like filming on the streets of New York City

·         He talks about working with director Dito Montiel again