With a great cast, a relevant story, and a stirring romance, The Boxer is all set to be a great film, but the resulting feature feels like a letdown. Irish director Jim Sheridan has teamed up with English actor Daniel Day Lewis for a feature depicting the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and for the most part, it’s decently made, but the film struggles to balance the romance and the politics of its story, with Day Lewis’ boxing lagging behind. There are plenty of interesting threads here– the right to self-determination, on both the individual and national level, the loss of youth, and the way war makes cities turn on themselves– which are all emotionally carried by the performances, but the structure fails to organize these ideas into a daring and cohesive statement. The Boxer isn’t a terrible watch, but it just feels like it could have delved more deeply into the conflict, or better yet, could have been at least two separate movies.
"The movie's acts of violence and betrayal may be familiar, but the filmmakers' obvious contempt for people given over to fanaticism is enormously welcome -- a call for the most elementary kind of sanity."
— David Denby
"The third collaboration between director Jim Sheridan and actor Daniel Day-Lewis, The Boxer is an involving but rather prosaic report from the Belfast front with a melancholy undertow of romantic yearning."
— Todd McCarthy
Nineteen-year-old Danny Flynn is imprisoned for his involvement with the I.R.A. in Belfast. He leaves behind his family and his sixteen-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.
After being imprisoned for 14 years due to getting involved with the IRA, former teen boxer Danny Flynn returns home to reopen his neighborhood gym and reconnect with his former love Maggie.
Daniel Day-Lewis and Emily Watson are two of the best actors of their generation, it’s genuinely sad that they don’t have as many scenes as they could together.
To be honest, it’s actually disappointing to see a whole year of boxing training only given a few scenes.
Cannes
1 nomination
