(hand slapping) - Sorry, sorry, sorry.
- Son of a (beep)
What the (beep) - My bad.
Welcome back to another episode
of Scenic Fights Fight Scene Breakdown!
I'm Chad Vázquez.
- I'm Logan Lo.
- And today we are breaking down two fight scenes
from the film Ava (2020).
The first fight scene we're looking at
will be Duke, played by John Malkovich.
- Right.
- Versus Simon, played by Colin Farrell.
- And the second scene is going to be the fight scene
between Ava, played by Jessica Chastain, versus Simon.
- Before we get to our breakdowns, make sure to subscribe,
hit the like button, notification bell
and let us know of any future fight scenes
that you'd like Logan and myself to break down
in the comment section below.
- Okay, ready to do this?
- Let's go. - Let's go.
- Bam, right in the kisser. - Hits her.
All right, charges him.
All right, so the mount situation here is punching.
- Okay.
- Yeah. No.
All right, so we'll pause there.
It's not that easy just to push someone off.
So Colin tackles Malkovich to the ground
and he's mounting him now.
And Malkovich does a weird mount escape
where he's blocking the punches and then pushes him off.
No way.
I don't see that happening that easy.
So what are some things that he could have done much better
with regards to reversing that position
instead of just pushing him off?
We have a guy who is postured and punching.
We need to get the hands on the floor to stop the punches.
Here I'm being punched in the attack, right?
So this is happening.
So to stop this quickly
I have to use my knee.
Right at the tailbone.
Immediately.
Now, before he re-postures
I'm going to now reposition my arms into a frame.
I'll take this arm, bring it across the waist
as a frame to stop my opponent from coming up any higher.
Now I can feel, for this mount escape,
we're going to look at there's a gap here.
Here's how we're going to expose that.
As I connect my hands and create a strong frame
so he can't move up.
I'm going to quickly take this leg
and straighten it to the ground as much as possible.
If I can make contact with my leg to the floor,
I am good to move to the next step.
Let's watch this leg here, everyone.
Using my elbow,
I can start pushing downward
and sliding my knee inside his shin.
Do you see how his foot pops up?
That's my target.
I want to control that ankle.
Okay. Let's look at this.
If it's a big guy and his knee is heavy on the floor.
Using this pinch
and the connection to the floor with my feet,
I'm going to hip out in this direction
while my knee's going out this direction.
That creates a knee lift.
Now can use my hand or my elbow
to push this down and create a guard.
I have a couple of options here which guard I want to go to.
I could go into a half guard,
especially if I'm worried about getting punched,
where I just lock two legs on one
and I get an underhook and I face my opponent.
So the transition looks like this.
As he has an overhook on me, I go here, right?
And grab the neck.
And this allows me to start coming up
and switching the position on him.
Another option I go to close guard.
I could hip out, get my knee through
and control the posture immediately
to stop myself from getting punched.
I need to pick a guard that will make sure I don't get hit
and I can start attacking immediately.
From that mount escape, half guard
and close guard are two very common guards to go to,
especially if we're dealing with punches.
So he's blocking punches.
- Ooh, taking the body shot, knee.
- All right.
I don't know how valid that is on locking the arm.
He charged him again.
And hold on, Duke just stands there.
He just keeps saying straight.
- Right.
- Duke, baby, give me something.
Give me a stance, a leg in front.
Just stand there, accepting it
like he's gonna give him a hug.
What's something that his character could have done better
in this situation?
Well, I learned this the hard way
through a mutual friend of ours, Steve.
He threw me very hard in sparring this way
is using a harai goshi
to take that energy
and put the opponent down in the floor.
So we made contact, and from here,
usually what happens is there will be some walking
because there's forward pressure here.
And as he starts walking to follow me,
that lift here.
So just Logan going with me here as I lift.
I would come down with my body weight.
That would have been an appropriate answer.
If Duke, Malkovich's character,
kept getting under control within the waist.
But he didn't.
Simon just kept on charging.
No set up, and Duke,
just come on, baby.
He just kept receiving that attack, man.
You gotta give me something.
Give me a front leg in front.
Just give me something, but he just kept on receiving it.
So that was I think, done poorly.
- Ooh.
No, that's no honor there.
- All right, so he's going for what's referred to
as a bulldog choke.
Not the best way to engage a turtle.
Malkovich's character is put into a turtle situation.
And what I mean by that is that he is an all fours like so.
This is where the fight has continued.
Now, Colin Farrell's character, Simon,
he is attacking turtle.
He decides to put Malkovich in this type of headlock
which also can be a choke
and the choke is referred to as a bulldog choke.
It looks something like this.
Colin Farrell goes around the neck
and starts trying to squeeze here.
And I think he actually moves his leg,
and we're careful of Logan's hand here,
in front to get close to the carotid here.
Now look, honestly, if you get past the chin, there,
there is a legit choke there.
The problem is there's nothing controlling the rest
of our partner's body.
So ability to move around
and possibly roll me over is legit, right?
So that's the problem
with this choke is that there's not that much control
of the lower body.
So what is a better option
in approaching and attacking turtle?
Let's go over the concept of diagonal control.
So for this diagonal control to work,
I need to have my knee and my foot connect.
Like so.
That stops any escape of this leg.
Furthermore, with my far arm,
I can now go to a far grips
whether it's the wrist or knuckles.
With this control, I am very dominant.
Let's go over some of my options here.
First, the easiest one,
I can punch.
I can just throw punches here.
A UFC fighter who does this beautifully
is a fighter named Khabib.
If you watch his fights,
he has his beautiful control of here
whether it's the arm or the waist
and just lands these hard shots.
That's option one.
That's the easiest option.
Option two.
We could go for chokes.
If his chin's up, I could just go right into a
one-arm choke.
Hand goes as far it can towards his trap.
I bring my chin on top of my wrist
and now as I rotate and squeeze.
I have a clean choke right there.
Let's say he's chin down, big guy,
he's not falling anywhere
and we want to knock him down to go
into a better back attack.
Well, we have an awesome move,
arresting move referred to as a power nelson
or a half nelson.
So from here I put my forearm
and elbow on top of his neck
and I kick my hands
and now I push my partner's head underneath his armpit.
As I do so, when I get him down,
I can now start climbing to straight to the choke
or a seatbelt,
and I get my feet involved
so I can make sure I have proper control
and which allows my arms to commit
to a full-on choke working together.
I think that'd been a much more logical, valid way
of attacking that position
assuming we're dealing with a trained guy.
All right, so actually this. - [Logan] Rock?
- [Chad] We have a rock versus a knife.
- Right, improvised weapon.
Okay. I dig it.
Here you go.
Slashing.
- He's waiting so far.
- Well, it's interesting
because Colin Farrell, he's basically leading with his left.
His weapon hand's in his right.
I don't know why Malkovich did that.
Okay, so now we have to pause here.
These are supposed to be two trained assassins.
These do not look like two trained assassins.
These look like a middle aged man
versus a much older gentleman
fighting with a rock and a knife.
There are so many problems with this
that I'm just going to focus on the major ones.
So in this exchange we have
Chad's going to be playing Simon.
He's going to be armed with a knife.
I am armed with a rock.
We're in Manhattan.
This is a rock.
Colin's coming in
with almost like a lunging straight stab to my stomach.
Bam. Exactly.
What Malkovich should have done.
He should have sidestepped and put his arm up as a barrier.
And then note that now I'm in a better position
where I can use this stone.
Slam the stone in Colin's face.
Bam, like that.
That's actually not what happened.
Malkovich comes in with,
watch it,
an elbow to the face
which you can see clearly cannot reach.
And I kind of try to do,
it looks like he was trying to do almost like a backhand.
It doesn't make any sense.
In reality, what does make sense?
I have a rock.
If you gave me a rock against someone with a knife,
I'm not saying I'll win, but I have a fighting chance.
Let's see again.
Colin comes in.
I defend properly, right?
I step out of the way,
I put a barrier in front of myself,
I have this rock, bam.
Or, if I really want to do the backhand, bam.
I'm winning that exchange
and the fight is done.
You'll notes as I come here, this is an optical illusion.
This is what you think you're seeing.
You're seeing this.
I'm not doing that.
What I'm actually doing,
I'm going to face you right now,
is I'm coming straight down.
I'm coming straight down,
but it looks like I'm hitting out
because I'm sidestepping as I do it.
So it looks like I'm going out, but I am not.
I'm going straight down.
So note as he comes at me, I just move out to side.
This is a guard.
So now if he comes in now with that upper, I have this.
Let's also talk about how Colin was utilizing the weapon.
You'll note that he was just doing slashes,
these barbarian slashes.
That does not make sense for someone that's trained.
If I'm going to put my weapon out there
and I'm going to be in danger.
Because again, every time you extend yourself
you put yourself into a modicum of danger
at least.
I want to get maximum return on my investment.
I'm not doing a one and done.
I am slashing to another slash to a stab,
to another slash to a stab, to another slash, to a, stab.
I'm not going to risk myself for what?
Just one lunging attack and hope for the best.
No, if this is on, this is on.
If we're in a fight for all the marbles
I'm going to win all the marbles.
And now we have Simon going after Ava,
played by Jessica Chastain in this scene.
- All right, let's get into it.
All right, so they're wrestling for that gun.
Okay, you know what?
I like that aspect of the fight
how he's moving her very easily
because it really shows a size difference there
and size and athleticism does play a role in a fight.
So I appreciate that.
- She's very cognizant of the danger of the weapon.
So she's focusing on it.
Okay. She got rid of the bullet.
It looks like she took the clip.
She's using the clip
as an improvised weapon or should be.
- Okay.
- Let's see if she does.
Nope, she ignores it.
- And how she rolled him over versus that.
I don't believe that that.
- Right.
- Okay, so now it's hand-to-hand.
- Right.
- Okay, and right here,
a failed crucifix attempt here.
- She's already got half of it.
- Yeah, but there's no attempt there.
And you know what,
for those who don't know what I'm referring to,
a crucifix, back control,
let's break it down right now.
This part of the fight
between Ava and Simon really annoyed me.
There was an opportunity to establish a back crucifix.
One of my favorite moves to do.
Let's break it down what that is
and what weapons and options you have for offense.
So we're looking at a back crucifix.
Okay, big piece,
a proper seatbelt.
Second part is my legs and is what makes the position.
It's controlling the far arm.
In this position, I have two weapons.
A choke, and I have an option to break the arm.
Put chokes first.
They end fights.
So let's go in the option of choking someone from here.
We can do a one arm rear naked choke.
So from here, as Logan's hands come to defend himself,
I manage to find a way to get a grip,
like so, and pin him.
And now I wrap around the neck,
fingers in, chin down, pinch.
And I go for that choke using out rotation
and extending my chest.
However, what happens is the chin goes down
and I can't get inside to the carotid.
So we'll now move into breaking the arm.
We're going to lock up the face first.
So chin's down, right, everyone?
I now use the strangle arm to turn the face
and lock up and hold it still.
My far leg pommels inside
and now I have two feet inside near Logan's armpit, right?
So I bring the inside knee towards the armpit.
I bring the outside leg towards the wrist.
From here, I hold his legs still.
I can now widen my knees and bridge, lift my hips up.
My hip into his elbow.
We'll move very slowly here.
So I pull the wrist back for more tension.
I can even have my feet connect to a certain extent.
I hold his neck still and I hip up
and that's all it takes to break the arm.
There's a third option here.
That might not work because my opponent
might hip up to stack me to reduce pressure on the elbow.
So when I feel that, I can smoothly take this leg
and transition with my knee.
Notice how I had the arm trapped
with both legs now involved.
Guys, now I can start moving to the choke
with no arms challenging my choking arm.
And that allows me to go straight
into the choke with both my arms there.
You can see from a back crucifix
that we have three powerful options.
We lead with the choke.
Choke fails, we're going to try to break the arm
with our legs.
If that fails based on reaction from our opponent
we can transition to a better position,
a full back control
and apply a full-on rear naked choke with two arms.
That would have been a far better option
for Ava to do in that position,
which she did not capitalize on at all.
- And I think that an issue that we're both having with this
can be summed up in the two words that you said originally
which is missed opportunities.
Even when I saw this, I immediately said,
"Oh, she's about to do a crucifix."
And it didn't happen.
Same thing with Malkovich holding that rock.
Nothing happened that should have happened logically
for trained people.
- Going for the eye gouge.
- Man, yeah.
- Taking that glass, bam.
- Okay. So same factor.
We're seeing how he moves her easily
given the size difference.
- Right. Right.
She takes an improvised weapon again.
Right. Clocks him with it.
Makes sense.
- Okay, so jumping on top of him there.
If you jumped on a guy like that, I mean A:
it won't be that easy,
but what's stopping him from just slamming down.
that's probably not the best way
if you're trying to get the fight to the ground.
It's just like jumping on someone.
So if we're looking at a strategy
for Ava to control the back and take it down to the floor
that leads right to a back control to choke,
there's a cool move I want to show you
referred to as an ashi otoshi.
Ava got back exposure.
So from here, instead of just jumping
and tackling, and especially,
it looks like Simon's taller than her.
Is get a waist control here.
I'm going to step around and get an extension.
A leg between his legs.
Notice how I'm hooking the far leg.
If you train to do this move,
here's how you do this safely.
I hop and sit in front of them as we fall to the ground.
So I'll do that right now very slowly.
Which leads to my second issue
was how she was applying back control
and how she made her attempt to the choke.
- [Logan] Oh, she takes it back.
- [Chad] Okay.
- What is she doing there?
Hands look sloppy where they are.
There's no legs involved
so there's lack of back control
and then he gets out very easily.
So remember, when we're attacking from the back
we need hooks.
Without hooks, our arms do too much work.
They now have to try to control the opponent and choke them.
It's just too much.
It's not reasonable.
And of course, if you do and someone's resisting,
they'll get out.
So this is what Ava did not have.
She just had the choke, not the legs, right?
So that's a problem here.
And now also is going to her choke.
Ideally she, went more of a classic version.
Like so.
This is old now
'cause my partner pull it off.
Exactly. Right?
And now with that one arm controlled, it's hard to choke them.
Very difficult.
However, if I manage to get my hands over
and behind his neck,
very difficult to remove that.
Very difficult.
And I would even argue that the extra position
of my control arm gives me a much stronger choke.
So that's a problem.
Hand on head, easy to find.
Hand behind neck, hard to find.
You can finish the choke much faster with resistance.
This is another mistake that she made
with regards to how she was trying to choke Simon.
No hooks,
and I would argue, poor form
on how she was locking up her arms around the neck.
You know Logan, you said it well
There was a lot of missed opportunities
And I think that really captures one of the major issues
for both fight scenes
and for certain things that I could recognize,
suboptimal choices
and nothing to really end the fight
and progress in a way that made sense.
So that's what I got from both fight scenes.
- I was pulled out completely
from the storyline because it was so unbelievable.
Chad's going to be giving the grade
but I can just let you know
that there was no legitimate weapons work whatsoever.
Not one.
I think, especially now when we look at other films
we do see now a new, I guess,
standard of choreography that are actually very realistic
and has been well-researched on real fighting arts.
So when it comes to knife work or hand-to-hand.
- Yeah, exactly.
It's a movie about trained fighters.
about trained military people.
about trained clandestine operatives.
Not just your regular Joe off the street.
So if you're going to tell a story about trained people
then it has to be believable.
In universe, it is not believable.
- Yep.
With all this said, both scenes get a
D -
Sorry Ava.
- But I'm still a big fan of Jessica Chastain.
- Guys are great, just not those fight scenes.
- Yeah. - Sorry, guys.
Thank you.
As always, everyone, thanks so much for watching.
If you're interested in training with me
my contact information is in the description below.
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Lastly, leave comments below on future fight scenes
that you'd like to see Logan and myself break down next.
All right guys, thank you.