BEFORE: Last boxing film, then I'm moving on to other sports. Linking from "The Fighter", Christian Bale was also in a film called "Equilibrium" with Emily Watson (last seen in "The Proposition").
THE PLOT: Danny Flynn is imprisoned for his involvement with the IRA in Belfast. He leaves behind his family and his fourteen year old girlfriend, Maggie Hamill. Fourteen years later, Danny is released from prison and returns to his old working class neighborhood to resume his life as a boxer, and open a boxing club training aspiring young boxers.
AFTER: This is half a boxing film, half a film about the IRA. Which means it's sure to be depressing, as everything about the IRA usually is. I agree war is terrible, but I remember when the troubles were going on in Northern Ireland, and it just seemed like such a non-winning situation for both parties, and it took so long for them to agree on a cease-fire that I think most people couldn't remember why they started fighting in the first place.
Not that I have any personal experience with war - being a casualty in the dispute between CBS and Time Warner Cable is probably as close as I've come. Just remember there are no winners in war.
The main character here is anti-war, but pro boxing, which is almost a contradiction - if they're all going to stop shooting each other and start punching each other, I guess that's an improvement? Well, the boxing club is for Catholics and Protestants, so it can be seen as a step forward. Which is exactly why some people naturally wanted to shut it down. Or burn it down, whichever.
Overall I found this one pretty hard to follow, since there were just too many parties with different agendas. And some were hypocritical, like berating the wives of imprisoned Irishmen for dating other men - which in the end didn't seem all that supportive.
Who knew that they held British boxing matches in ballrooms? That was mildly interesting...
Also starring Daniel Day-Lewis (last seen in "The Bounty"), Brian Cox (last seen in "The Zodiac"), Ken Stott (last seen in "One Day"), Gerard McSorley, Ian McElhinney.
RATING: 4 out of 10 checkpoints
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