Welcome To The Punch

In modern day cinema we, as Brits, are constantly bombarded with self righteous American rubbish. I'm not in any way saying I don't enjoy American cinema, a lot of my favourite films are Hollywood exports, I'm just voicing my disappointment at the apparent lack of big British films that seem to be about these days and they seem to have been replaced by terribly generic action films draped in stars and stripes. So when I first saw the advert for Welcome To The Punch I felt an instant sense of relief at the fact that we had what appeared to be a proper British film hitting the big screens. James McAvoy and Mark Strong starring, with Ridley Scott as executive producer, had me even more interested, and after hearing David Morrisey being interviewed by Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo I was fully convinced.

The film essentially revolves around James McAvoy's character, Max Lewinsky, and his obsession to catch ex-criminal Jacob Sternwood, played by Mark Strong, by whom he was shot three years previous to when the film is set. Sternwood is forced to return to London after finding out his son has been severely injured, presenting Max the opportunity to finally catch his nemesis.

I really enjoyed the film, it definitely exceeded my expectations. It avoided falling into too many action film tropes and more impressively it evaded the stereotypical cockney police geezer routine. The script was clever, interesting and kept you guessing without dangling a constant stream of twist clues in your face, as well as having some really unexpectedly funny moments of dark humour. The acting was very good, maybe not anything extraordinary, but I can't think of one actor that unperformed. The music, an original score, helped create a great atmosphere and the action scenes were exciting but never too drawn out or unrealistic (apart from the small fact that both a trained policeman and former soldier both had shocking poor aim with a machine gun).

However, the standout element of Welcome To The Punch was undoubtedly the cinematography. It was absolutely stunning. It is one of the first films I've seen that makes London look like a beautiful modern city as opposed to a stuffy old place from a bygone era. Some of the nighttime landscape shots in which the whole city has light up with beautiful blue and white lights is nothing short of breathtaking. We constantly see American films use similar techniques with cities such as New York, yet we rarely see it done in British cinema. I for one hope a lot of directors take note and continue to portray places like London for their modern aesthetic qualities, because I felt that this, paired with constant clever use of blue lighting, is what really brought the movie to life.

Aside from how brilliant looking it was the two central characters were also superb. Straight from the start the film puts the idea in the audiences head that James McAvoy is the protagonist and Mark Strong the antagonist. However, throughout the course of the film it quite brilliantly makes us question our initial ideas of the two men. McAvoy brilliantly portrays the dark side of his character Max, with a pretty much flawless London accent, and at times you can't help but feel that he's just a complete and utter vengeful bastard. In contrast to this we become more and more sympathetic toward Mark Strong's character as the film goes on, even though the story started by showing him as nothing more than a cold hearted criminal.

My only complaint on the acting side of things would be that we didn't see enough of David Morrisey. I found his character really interesting, and I think Morrisey himself is a talented actor, so it would have been nice to have had him in a few more scenes.

Overall I think the only way to sum up Welcome To The Punch by describing it as a true British heavyweight. It engrossed me from start to finish. Great acting, great script, great directing, phenomenal cinematography and a very interesting ending. I would very highly recommend this film to anyone of any age, you definitely will not regret it. Superb.




Written by Ash Davies