Welcome to the Punch (2013)

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Although the movie contains a lot of predictable Ridley Scott violent action, the subtlety of the performances turned in by James McAvoy (always good) and Mark Strong is remarkable. McAvoy plays a cop named Max and Strong the bandit Sternwood, who wounds Max in the getaway after a heist as the movie opens. He shoots to wound, not kill, Max.That said, it is Mark Strong's acting that is the focus of this review. I was not familiar with him or his work, but apparently he is always cast as a villain. The duplicitous and convoluted plot of "Punch" sets up McAvoy as the protagonist and Strong the antagonist, with other characters having little to do except cause Max and Sternwood physical pain and mental anguish.Despite all the mayhem and noise, however, Strong (Sternwood) steals the scene from McAvoy twice, first with a sentence and a look, and later with just body language and a look. Quite amazing really. See for yourself.

This film is good but not great. But is not bad at all. Mark Strong is at his best and James McEvoy turns in a very good performance as well. You also almost immediately get the sense that Andrea Riseborough in the role of Sarah is a near perfect partner for Max (McEvoy).If you like a lot of shooting, high speed action and plot intrigue in an action thriller, you will have a lot of fun watching. You get a little of each in almost every scene.This is however a lower budget film. There's not a lot of CGI special effects. There are no blockbuster, high-dollar actors here to attract the kind of theater or disc demand to expect that this was going to be a box office smash. Aside from Strong, McEvoy and Riseborough, the acting is good but not great (see my lede). The plot also has a few tiny holes in it but they're not enough to ruin anything. It's just kind of a fun flick to sit down to after dinner and be entertained by a fast-paced action thriller with bullets flying, plot twists (tiny holes and all)and decent acting. If that's what you're looking for, you'll be pleased, and then surprised that this was over before you knew it.

When you look back in film history, there have been numerous great British made thrillers and gangster movies. This missed the boat and will never catch it.What we have is a production with a tick list that has a mark against some notable boxes: good actors, rich settings, interesting lighting, fine directing etc. They forgot though about the screenplay which really is poor. Some clichés, a lot of nonsense and nothing big or clever.James McAvoy really needs to speak to his voice trainer, his accent was appalling. A fine actor reduced to looking out of place here.Apart from one shoot-out in the last quarter, I really don't have anything much good to say of the action which was mostly dull. Some say it is supposedly influenced by Hong Kong gangster work, this doesn't seem to pay off or understand the genre. I've watched lots of those movies, this doesn't cut the mustard.There's no point saying much more about this, just put it to the side and move on. Very disappointing.

WELCOME TO THE PUNCH is a monumental failure of a film, even worse than the recent SWEENEY remake directed by Nick Love. The blame for this film's failure can be laid at the door of writer/director Eran Creevy, a guy who displays a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to action direction and indeed writing a decent script.Essentially this is a crime film that sees the central characters investigating a flimsy, over-contrived back story that actually has nothing to do with any of them. This story - a predictable mystery with all of the non-surprising surprises you'd expect - is so trivial as to be barely worth writing down, and yet they manage to drag it out to feature length thanks to plenty of padding and unnecessarily filler material. The action, when it hits, is ludicrous, either inappropriate slow motion or random "pop up and shoot" bad guy moments, like in the laughable climax.The direction is equally poor, with Creevy making the bad decision of over-utilising the 'teal effect' for this film. This is where the entire film is tinted blue and orange, and it's such a cliché that I can't believe directors are still incorporating it into their movies. It makes for a muted, artificial look that dragged my enjoyment of the film down even further. It's a pity that a decent cast has been wasted in this non-starter of a film, with reliable performances from James McAvoy and Mark Strong as the leads, alongside David Morrissey and Peter Mullan; Jason Flemyng and Elyas Gabel provide cameo appearances but are equally wasted. And, indeed, the whole thing is a monumental waste of time.