BEFORE: The theater where I work is hosting NewFest, an LGTBQ-themed festival that's usually held in October, but they've added a special week of programming for June, Pride Month, which just makes sense. More hours for me, that's fine, because I lost two weeks of work in May due to COVID. And the theater may be closed in July, so I've got to get my hours in when I can - I'll work any festival shifts that come my way. So after I watch this film, I've got to get up early (even though my "early" is later than most people's) and work the premiere of "Fire Island", a new gay rom-com that's actually getting good buzz and has a chance at something like mainstream success. I don't take advertising on my blog, but if I did, I'd tell you that "Fire Island" starts streaming on Hulu tomorrow, after its gala red-carpet premiere tonight.
Mark Strong carries over one more time, from "Cruella".
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Filth" (Movie #3,946)
THE PLOT: When a notorious criminal is forced to return to London, it gives a detective one last chance to take down the man he's always been after.
AFTER: Well, now I'm mentally burned out, after a 14-hour shift, but I spent time with the fabulous cast of "Fire Island" and many of their friends, so there's that. No, I did not go to the afterparty, I had to work the late 10 pm screening that ended at 11:55 pm. I left the theater at 12:50 and got home at almost 2 am. And now I have to write something about "Welcome to the Punch"? Ugh, I don't know if I can keep up this sort of festival schedule during all of June, there's at least one more film festival before the month is over, and it's the ginormous Tribeca Film Festival.
Here goes - "Welcome to the Punch" is about Max Lewinsky, a UK police detective who came close to taking down a gang of thieves who were known for escaping from robberies on motorbikes, but in a showdown with the gang's leader, Jacob Sternwood, Max was shot in the leg, but has been tormented by the fact that Sternwood COULD have shot him dead, but didn't.
Three years later, Sternwood's son leaves an airplane and collapses on a runway - he'd been shot, but it's honestly a bit unclear how he boarded an airplane after being shot. How is that possible? Like, wouldn't the TSA inspectors have seen that he was bleeding? It couldn't have happened on the plane, so WTF? Anyway, he's taken to hospital, but the inspectors learn that he'd placed a call to Iceland before he collapsed. Aha, so the notorious bank (?) robber Jacob Sternwood's been hiding out in Iceland. The police go to Iceland (wait, isn't that a bit out of their jurisdiction?) against Lewinsky's advice and sure enough, it's a trap, and Sternwood escapes, then blows up his hideout, taking out several international cops (?). Wow, just by typing out the plot, I've realized that this story is full of holes, it really makes no sense.
Sternwood returns to the U.K. to check on his hospitalized son, but the police lay a trap for him at the hospital. Sternwood, suspecting a trap, directs another man into his son's room (this random man had conveniently asked Sternwood for directions...) and the police grab the random stranger (but they could CLEARLY see it wasn't Sternwood...huh?) and Sternwood is thus alerted to the trap, and scarpers off.
Meanwhile, Lewinsky and his partner are also investigating Dean Warns, an ex-soldier who's suspected of illegal arms dealing, but who was released for lack of evidence. Lewinsky checks in with a security guard who retracted his statement implicating Warns, assuming that Warns got to him and "convinced" him to change his mind. Lewinsky's female partner, Sarah, checks out a storage facility to look for evidence, and she finds it, but Warns also finds HER, and things don't go well for her after that.
Sternwood then sets a trap of his own, he gets an associate to leak the name of his hotel and what room he's in, then waits to see which coppers come to take him out - will it be the noble one, Lewinsky, or some of the corrupt ones. Oh, yeah, some of the UK policemen are corrupt, and it's got something to do with Warns supplying guns to the police, but I couldn't quite get a handle on it, it might have had something to do with their weird accents. Usually I watch films on cable or streaming with proper subtitles, but I'd burned this film to a DVD myself, so unfortunately, no subtitles to help me out. The weird thing, they were all speaking ENGLISH, but British English, and by the time my ears got accustomed to the accents, the film was about half over.
Anyway, Sternwood finds out his son is dead, and Lewinsky finds out his partner is dead, so there's nothing much for them to do but team up, I suppose. Wait, WHAT? Lewinsky's been trying to find and kill Sternwood for THREE YEARS and then once he hits town, this turns into a TEAM-UP? This twist in the last third of the film makes even less sense than the earlier scenes with the good guys and the bad guy trying to outwit each other. WHY would Lewinsky team up with Sternwood, just to root out the corruption in his own police department? It hardly seems worth it, to abandon the quest to have Sternwood pay for his crimes and let him help take down corruption in the police force, in fact it's ridiculous, preposterous even. Woof, and then there's the ending, which just subverts and betrays any reasonable logic at all.
In 2010, the script for this film was placed on the Brit List, an industry-compiled list of the best unproduced screenplays in British film. Hmm, maybe they got it right the first time, and maybe this film deserved to stay in the category of unmade films, it's tough to say. I'm fairly sure this isn't how police or criminals really work... As Winston Churchill never said, "Never before in the field of British cinema have so many great British actors gathered to produce so little plot."
Also starring James McAvoy (last seen in "Filth"), Andrea Riseborough (last seen in "Never Let Me Go"), Johnny Harris (last seen in "RocknRolla"), Daniel Mays (last seen in "Nanny McPhee Returns"), David Morrissey (last seen in "Centurion"), Peter Mullan (last heard in Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle"), Natasha Little, Daniel Kaluuya (last seen in "Widows"), Ruth Sheen (last seen in "Mr. Turner"), Jason Flemyng (last seen in "Hanna"), Elyes Gabel (last seen in "A Most Violent Year"), Robert Portal (last seen in "Goodbye Christopher Robin"), Jason Maza, Jay Simpson (last seen in "Their Finest"), Seun Shote (last seen in "Dune" (2021)), Dannielle Brent (last seen in "Cockneys vs. Zombies"), David Michaels, Tom Turner (also carrying over from "Cruella"), Ray De Haan, Oliver Silver.
RATING: 4 out of 10 flight attendants
No comments:
Post a Comment