Welcome to the Punch, 2013.
Written and Directed by Eran Creevy.
Starring James McAvoy, Mark Strong, Andrea Riseborough, David Morrissey, Jason Flemyng, Peter Mullan, Johnny Harris and Daniel Mays.
SYNOPSIS:
Ex-criminal Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong) is forced to return to London when his son is involved in a heist gone wrong. This gives his nemesis, detective Max Lewinsky (James McAvoy), one last chance to catch the man he’s always been after.
With Welcome to the Punch, as with a lot of mediocre movies, the problems begin with the script. Yeah, cinematographer Ed Wild has made London look pretty, and yeah, a cast including James McAvoy, Mark Strong, Andrea Riseborough and Peter Mullan delivers the standard of acting you’d expect. But heavy exposition, hackneyed tough guy dialogue and a number of unbelievable plot developments can’t be hidden no matter how much you shine up the product. And Welcome to the Punch’s lack of originality makes nothing better.
The Michael Mann influence on every aspect of Punch, from the basic storyline (troubled, driven cop versus smart, dedicated crook), right down to its helicopter shots and visual blue-ness, makes the movie, if not a rip-off, then an exercise in trying to recreate another director’s style to the detail. Welcome to the Punch is so obviously indebted to one particular Mann film that I don’t even need to mention it here, as so many other critics have already done it for me. Director Eran Creevy’s inspiration was to make London look glossy, in an attempt to recreate the look of Mann’s L.A.. Mission accomplished, but so what? If being self-consciously stylised is the reason behind the film’s existence, it’s not hard to see why the story and characterisation suffer.
As well as blue-tinted camera lensing, Welcome to the Punch is a showcase for the best of Brit acting talent, and it’s here where the film’s key strength lies. The aforementioned cast members (along with the likes of Daniel Mays, David Morrissey and the excellent Johnny Harris) were presumably drawn in by the promise of Ridley Scott as producer and the up-and-coming Creevy as writer/director. They’re all a joy to watch, even if their inclusion increases the feeling of missed opportunity. McAvoy has a muscular confidence, Strong is reliably solid as a sensitive hard nut while Peter Mullan threatens to steal the show just by being his gruff, world-weary self.
Riseborough fares worse, barely given anything to do besides be annoyed at/in love with James McAvoy, despite being one of the UK’s best young actresses. Mays and Morrissey, though, are laboured with two unbelievable, hard-ass cop characters; like Riseborough, they try their best, but it’s a lost cause when the entire film around them is so unsubtle, and stretches the imagination so often. When the character makes no sense on the page, it’s not going to make sense on screen, regardless of the actor. And it’s a rare actor that can make dialogue this wooden into something special.
Everyone in Punch talks in exposition-speak, or they’ll growl out cynical barbs to show just how terrible they think the world is. Characters here make what you think will turn out to be jokes, until you realise no-one – audience included – is laughing. Eran Creevy has absorbed the knowledge on hard-boiled crime flicks, but forgotten to introduce some personality of his own into his movie or realise that it’s a mistake to have it take itself so seriously. Punch is stuffed full of rehashed clichés: it’s the kind of film where guns never run out of bullets, where everyone is so focused they’re almost robotic and where all stuff, when shot, explodes into tiny, tiny bits.
There are a few blah action sequences, with a grand, hand canon-heavy finale that’s not exactly groundbreaking. The standout moment of the film sees Strong and Mullan confront Johnny Harris’ ex-army contractor – the tension comes from knowing a shootout will take place, but not knowing exactly when. Really it gives a group of actors, the underused but no less spectacular Harris in particular, opportunity to do some real acting rather than endless plot-relaying. It descends into overly-slick slo-mo gunplay, but Creevy at least knows to let his actors drive this scene.
With a lean running time, Welcome to the Punch is never less than entertaining, and it flirts with exhilaration on a couple of occasions, but loses much of its glamour for being so self-serious and derivative. For all the criticisms, Punch is still a streamlined, engaging action thriller; it’s just not a particularly deep, innovative or memorable one. The performers and their performances are uniformly excellent, and the cinematography provides an artistic sheen, but you can’t tart up a half-baked London Heat and expect no-one to notice.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Brogan Morris – Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the young princes. Follow Brogan on Twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion.
Originally published March 11, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
