# Boxer, The (1997)

### reviewed by
Kevin Patterson

    Film review by Kevin Patterson

    THE BOXER
    Rating: *** (out of four)
    R, 1997
    Director: Jim Sheridan
    Screenplay: Jim Sheridan & Terry George
    Starring Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, Brian Cox, Ken Stott, Gerald
    McSorley

At its root level, Jim Sheridan's THE BOXER is a commentary on the political strife that plagues Northern Ireland and a challenge to both sides to put down the guns. But rather than focusing on the violence itself, it fashions a political statement by showing us how the "Troubles" have affected everyday people.

Daniel Day-Lewis stars in the lead as Danny Flynn, a former IRA member who has just finally finished his 14-year prison sentence for terrorist activities and no longer wants anything to do with the violent side of the Republican movement. He and his former girlfriend Maggie (Emiliy Watson) quickly discover that they are still in love, but she was married to another prisoner many years ago. Because she is a "prisoner's wife," her marriage, though she herself no longer believes in it, carries political significance: if it breaks up, it stands as a sign of disunity among Republican forces. Day-Lewis and Watson perform admirably, portraying their relationship with almost no cliche or cheesiness, and I particularly enjoyed the way they found themselves drifting back together without consciously trying to do so.

Danny, in the meantime, has teamed up with his friend Ike Weir (Ken Stott) to start a non-sectarian boxing club in Belfast. He is not without enemies, most notably Harry (Gerald McSorley), an IRA hard-liner who wants nothing to do with the emerging peace agreement. Joe Hamill (Brian Cox), Maggie's father, is a moderate IRA leader who would like to settle for peace, but he disapproves of his daughter's relationship with Danny because of the political element.

There is, I suspect, a temptation for filmmakers to take politically controversial material like that of THE BOXER and fashion an extremely intense and volatile story around it. Sheridan and co-writer Terry George take a different approach: the tone of their film is more sad and regretful than anything else, augmented partly by their decision to shoot most of the scenes in bluish, hazy cinematography. When a bomb goes off during the first match at the boxing club and rioting breaks out in the streets, Sheridan chooses not to stage a pumped-up action sequence and instead gets his audience to share in the disappointment of Danny and Ike that their attempt to hold a peaceful gathering between Catholics and Protestants has failed.

As a matter of fact, one problem that THE BOXER runs into is that it is so far removed from the mentality of violence that the violent pasts of Danny and Joe are never quite convincing. Joe, in particular, seems like a nice family man who just happens to have once ordered quite a few people to be killed by IRA terrorist attacks. Danny is less of a problem, given that he left the IRA at a young age, but sometimes he seems too mild-mannered even for boxing, much less terrorism.

Sheridan also runs into a structural problem in that none of the conflicts in THE BOXER have easy solutions. (After all, if they did, Northern Ireland might have had peace years ago.) He and co-writer George accordingly force a "big confrontation" at the end which basically relies on McSorley's character turning into a complete loose cannon. It solves the characters' personal problems, but not the political conflicts that gave rise to them. I'm not saying that the screenplay should have tried to solve the political conflicts, as this would have been completely unrealistic, but this ending just didn't seem to work: it was as if they were trying to fake dramatic closure instead of simply acknowledging its impossibility.

Films that receive the three-star rating from me generally fall into two categories: those that are only moderately ambitious in the first place and just try to entertain for a little while (e.g. THE GAME or AUSTIN POWERS), and those that have lofty goals and solid underlying ideas but don't quite cross all the Ts and dot all the Is (e.g. GATTACA or THE END OF VIOLENCE). THE BOXER is an example of the latter: the execution is sloppy in a few places, but its heartfelt examination of the "Troubles" is enough to make it a good film.

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