Story of a former champ looking for redemption is shot through with cliches but it’s very well acted, particularly one indelible scene with Joe Pesci
Jack Huston’s directing debut is a big-hearted, decently intended piece of work; it is well acted, less well written, an old-fashioned boxing movie, classically attired in monochrome, and set in New York in 1989 but behaving as if VJ Day hasn’t happened yet. The title is an apparent nod to the one Stanley Kubrick chose for his own debut, a documentary short about a boxer’s jittery, aimless mood before that evening’s fight with nothing to do but wait.
There are a lot of cliches on show here, with some exasperatingly on-the-nose dialogue scenes, and important dramatic moments being revealed by rote in memory flashbacks. This is damaged middleweight ex-champ Mikey Flannigan, played by Michael Pitt, troubled by his terrible sins, preparing for a shot at the title – and, of course, a shot at redemption. Ron Perlman plays Mikey’s scowling yet fatherly trainer; Nicolette Robinson is his ex-wife Jessica; Steve Buscemi is his easy-going uncle; and John Magaro is his best buddy from the neighbourhood and now a priest. Joe Pesci has a rather amazing silent scene with Pitt as Mikey’s ageing and once abusive father, now in a care home having evidently suffered a stroke, with whom Mikey has to have some kind of painful reckoning before getting back into the ring.
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