THE BOXER (Universal) Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, Brian Cox, Gerard McSorley, Ken Stott, Ciaran Fitzgerald. Screenplay: Jim Sheridan and Terry George. Producers: Jim Sheridan and Arthur Lappin. Director: Jim Sheridan. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, violence) Running Time: 110 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw
Jim Sheridan and Terry George, contemporary cinema's poets laureate of the Irish "Troubles," are building an extraordinarily well-received body of work. Sheridan's 1993 film IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER earned multiple Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations; George's 1996 directing debut SOME MOTHER'S SON garnered many critical plaudits. Their earnest, well-crafted stories of folks caught up in the turbulence of political violence have moved many viewers to heap adjectives of praise upon their films. And while all this occurs, I find myself sitting and thinking, "You know, it was good, but..."
Sheridan and George's latest collaboration, THE BOXER, falls into a very similar category. It tells the story of Danny Flynn (Daniel Day-Lewis), a former IRA member who has just completed a fourteen year sentence for his involvement in terrorist activities. All Danny wants is to pick up the pieces of his life, perhaps returning to the boxing career interupted by his incarceration, but things are not to be so simple. His teenage sweetheart Maggie (Emily Watson) is now married to another prisoner and has a teenage son of her own; Danny's former running partner Harry (Gerard McSorley) is none-too-pleased that Danny has shunned his former IRA friends. While IRA political leader (and Maggie's father) Joe Hamill (Brian Cox) tries to create peace at the bargaining table, Danny makes his own small efforts to bring the warring factions together, but finds his personal and professional desires encountering dangerous opposition from Harry.
There are always plenty of things to like about a Sheridan film, most notably his ability to create a vibrant sense of place. The divided Belfast of THE BOXER is a startling image, with its physical wall dividing the people even more concretely than the differing ideologies. One early scene finds IRA memberrs leading Joe through a series of cut-out walls so that he can reach a party without having to walk outside; explosions rip through the characters' lives without warning. The insanity and self-perpetuating violence of the Irish conflict are starkly portrayed, with more ambiguity surrounding the question of right and wrong than most films on the subject -- including Sheridan and George's own previous films -- have managed to explore.
For all its welcome complexity of theme, however, THE BOXER tends to drift in the exploration of its main characters. Nowhere is this more evident than in the love story between Danny and Maggie, a star-crossed romance which feels more obligatory than well-developed. Furtive glances and snatches of conversation establish tension between them, but their connection is never entirely convincing. It doesn't help that the central impediment to their relationship -- Maggie's husband, to whom she is expected to be unerringly faithful in support of The Cause -- never makes an appearance. In one sense, it's an effective device which turns him into an abstract rallying point for the IRA rather than an individual human being. At the same time, we are forced to take for granted that Maggie belongs with Danny, and that Liam's devotion to his absent father's memory is the foolish stuff of childhood.
None of which is to suggest that the performances aren't strong from top to bottom, because they are. Daniel Day-Lewis brings a resigned dignity to Danny; his unwillingness to return to the IRA's ways seems as much a result of fatigue than moral scruple. Brian Cox and Gerard McSorley do solid work as the warring factions within the IRA, and Ken Stott has a few nice scenes as Danny's old trainer, reduced to a pathetic drunk by the dissolution of his boxing club. Their stories always hold your attention, but they never engross the way great film stories do. Perhaps my sense in THE BOXER, and with IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER and SOME MOTHER'S SON for that matter, is that Sheridan and George are more interested in making a point than making a movie. The result is a cerebral film with too little gut-level emotion. Sheridan and George are good film-makers, but they could be great if they were as attentive to their people as to their politics.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 boxing days: 7.
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