Small-town boy Shawn MacArthur 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 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. - skip ad - Genres: Crime/Gangster and Sports Running Time: 1 hr. 45 min. Release Date: April 24th, 2009 (wide) MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense fight sequences, some sexuality and brief strong language. Distributor: Universal Pictures Cast And Credits Starring: Channing Tatum, Terrence Howard, Zulay Henao, Michael Rivera, Flaco Navaja (II) Directed by: Dito Montiel Produced by: Lisa Bruce, Andrew Rona, Kevin Misher

You might expect a movie called “Fighting” to be a blunt, literal affair, and in the case of Dito Montiel’s new film, you would not be wrong. Without undue fuss or grandiosity, it tells the story of Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum), a muscular young fellow from Birmingham, Ala., who comes to the big city and, well, fights.

The bouts themselves are not badly executed. They are, in effect, musical numbers, choreographed with a certain brutish wit. And the simple plot of “Fighting” seems also to belong to an old musical about a humble young man chasing big dreams on tough streets. Or, more to the point, the picture is a pugilistic cousin to the “Step Up” dance-competition franchise, which helped put Mr. Tatum’s career on its upward trajectory.

And even though he is still young and a little raw, Mr. Tatum (who also appeared in “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” Mr. Montiel’s debut film) has what it takes to be a real movie star. Not just an impressive physique and the physicality of a young Marlon Brando, but also a surprising sensitivity, a lightness of manner that makes him credible even in preposterous situations.

Not everything that happens in “Fighting” entirely makes sense — it’s a fable, after all, and a fable doesn’t necessarily have to — but it breathes with a rough, exuberant realism that you rarely see in movies of its kind. This is partly a result of its having been filmed on actual, unprettified New York locations, rather than on Canadian streets that, while perfectly pleasant, could never be Manhattan.

As he showed in the hectic, heartfelt and achingly autobiographical “Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” Mr. Montiel has an almost limitless affection for ordinary sidewalks, coffee shops and apartment buildings. (His interior locations are authentically cluttered and narrow, something you don’t often see in New York-set movies released by major studios.)

The aerial shots of the city, in contrast, seem dull and superfluous. The characters in “Fighting” are not flying around in planes or lounging on penthouse terraces — though Shawn does have a climactic fight in a half-renovated luxury apartment high above Wall Street — and Mr. Montiel’s heart beats strongest at street level, where people are engaged in an endless, restless hustle.

A lot of that hustle consists of killing time, waiting for something to happen. And it is in its slackest moments that the real poetry of “Fighting” breaks through. Mr. Montiel has an odd, stuttery sense of pacing, an eccentric, almost haphazard approach to framing and a fondness for loosely structured scenes driven by improvised dialogue. Either he has no idea what he’s doing or he’s in possession of a vividly idiosyncratic directing style. Having been unexpectedly delighted by “Saints” and “Fighting” — which both swim through seas of cliché and emerge sparkling and fresh — I’m inclined to choose the second possibility.

Not that “Fighting” is a great movie. It has no desire to be one — not an ounce of grandiosity or pretension or melodramatic overstatement. To be sure, there’s a lot of drama. Shawn is brought into the fight scene by a semisuccessful underworld fixer named Harvey (Terrence Howard), who is mixed up with some much rougher characters, including Martinez (Luis Guzmán) and Jack (Roger Guenveur Smith), who was surely an honor student at the Christopher Walken Academy of Curious Diction. Shawn falls for a pretty nightclub waitress named Zulay (Zulay Henao) and also runs into Evan (Brian White), a rival from back home who brings up troubling memories.

None of this especially matters. The story goes pretty much exactly where you expect it to, but the story is really beside the point. Mr. Montiel is certainly in no hurry to tell it, and he lingers over his scenes, holding them open so that the actors can walk around, have a snack and explore the odd corners of their characters.

Mr. Howard has a fine time trying out Peter Lorre-like intonations, and he and Mr. Tatum connect like Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo in a cleaned-up update of “Midnight Cowboy.” Everyone else rambles, mumbles and kibitzes, and every once in a while Altagracia Guzman (“Raising Victor Vargas”) shows up, playing Zulay’s grandmother, and walks off with a scene as if it were a suitcase full of money sitting unattended on the table.

By the end, some actual suitcases full of money show up, but “Fighting” is one of the most relaxed movies about chasing after a big payday that I’ve ever seen. Its ambitions are modest, and it doesn’t pursue them with excessive zeal, which may be why, improbably, it feels like a winner.

“Fighting” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has fighting.