Bloody but unbowed
Takedown: The DNA of GSP Rating: ★★ 1/2 Featuring: Georges St.-Pierre, John Danaher Directed by: Kristian Manchester, Peter Svatek Running time: 90 minutes (In English and French with English subtitles)
Georges St-Pierre — popularly known as GSP — is a champion fighter of mixed martial arts. This sport, a combination of boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu and second-degree assault, is a brutal brand of combat in which people are kicked in the head, have their noses smashed with elbows and surrender to submission holds. The losers emerge bruised, cut and sometimes unconscious. The winners look like people who have just completed a tour of a slaughterhouse and got too close.
GSP was the welterweight champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, in which fighters are locked into a cage and batter one another in front of huge crowds. He’s a fearsome competitor, a tireless trainer and a sort of sweet guy, although he admits he’s as crazy as the rest of them but knows how to hide it better.
That’s the portrait that emerges in Takedown: The DNA of GSP, a documentary on St-Pierre that looks at his early life (he was bullied), his early training (he was relentless) and then his rise to the top (he was indomitable.)
It’s somewhere between a televised UFC match — the highlights of several fights are featured and there is no shortage of scenes of guys pounding someone’s head against the mat — and someone’s idea of a deep metaphorical look at man’s instincts.
Part of it is a portrait of ordinary-seeming lives. Codirectors Kristian Manchester and Peter Svatek visit the St-Pierre homestead in Saint-Isidore, Que., where Georges arrives for his favourite meal, his mom’s meat pie. When Mme. St-Pierre puts drinking glasses on the table, Georges accuses her of putting on airs for the cameras: He puts the glasses back in the cupboard and drinks right from his water bottle.
We hear from GSP’s various trainers and instructors, chiefly John Danaher, who taught GSP when he was just starting out and has remarkably clear insights into his competitive spirit.
Throughout Takedown, St-Pierre talks about how he wants respect as an athlete who just happens to be a fighter rather than a hockey or football player. He’s certainly in impressive shape, and no one can doubt the courage and skill called on.
It is also horrific, a barely civilized extension of boxing into the realm of gladiatorial blood sport.