"The Boxer" is the third collaboration between Irish director Jim Sheridan and dashing Daniel Day-Lewis exploring the Irish character. "Raging Bull" it
ain't. Fine actors and a riveting story can't salvage this film from amateurish camera work and stilted writing. Sheridan was apparently writing scenes right before they were performed,
improvising as he went, and it shows. Wong Kar-Wai got away with this in "Happy Together" because his films are visual dynamos, his style is fragmentary, he has an instinctive radar for finding the
emotional heart of scenes and he knows how to pace a film to hold interest. Sheridan is a workmanlike director and this sort of improvisation doesn't work because his films rely heavily on
narrative and aren't visually inventive. Very good performances from Emily Watson ("Breaking the Waves") and Day-Lewis can't rouse this film from its torpor. I think the people handing out Golden
Globe awards are playing a practical joke, as they bestowed 3 nominations on this one, including Best Film, and ignored Quentin Tarantino's clever, dazzling screenplay for "Jackie Brown." ?!??
Let's get on with it. The opening sequence of "The Boxer" is evocative and very, very effective. Former IRA man Danny (Day-Lewis)
is released after serving 14 years as a prison wedding to an IRA member takes place. Outside, ominous hovering British Army helicopters pummel the celebrants in a telling scene that shows us how pervasive, menacing and unavoidable the British Government's policies are to the Irish. Danny meets his former trainer in a flophouse the first night he's out (repeat after me: willing suspension of disbelief.....). Danny returns home to suspicion, doubt, political infighting in the IRA and his true love
Meg (Watson)
who is now married to -- surprise! Danny's best friend! (repeat after me: willing suspension of disbelief....).
This is based on a true story, and there's terrific potential to explore moral
choices - whether violence is ever justified, the moral dichotomy of a pacifist boxer, the allegiance of a woman to her husband and father or to her lover, and the sheer tragedy of wasted lives. We get
scraps and pieces but it doesn't hang together and form a cohesive statement about anything, except that the British upperclass are horrid people and Danny is a cool guy. "The Boxer" works best as a
sociological examination of Irish life under the British boot. Sheridan is very good at real-life details of how the Irish rabbit-warren tenements are expanded to form a rambling common living area,
underage kids drinking, the bitter ideological divide within the IRA, religious strife, and how the IRA deals with traitors.
Ominous British Army helicopters thunder through the film, a constant
reminder of the political climate. All the helicopter and overhead shots in this movie are very good, although there are a few too many and I started to hum U2's "One" to myself, because that video
also has many aerial shots of cars moving through streets. At any rate, the sweeping aerial shot from the Irish to the British border is taut and sets the tone for a gripping movie about conflicting
loyalties and the life-or-death consequences of betraying the solidarity, especially as it affects IRA women. Unfortunately, what we get is a hero whose silence comes off as boring instead of
thoughtful, murky photography, comic-book lines in stilted scenes and a relentlessly dismal color palette of cloudy greys and blues. This shadowy photography indicates the dark, ill-defined morality of
these people's lives, but it's depressing and hard to look at.
Danny and Meg try to reconnect against all odds as Meg's IRA leader father tries to broker a peace deal and Danny begins teaching
boxing. Both men are under suspicion by an unrepentant and violent IRA faction, who disagree with peace and Meg's contacts with Danny. Danny tries to resuscitate his boxing career, steer his way
through the IRA's stern policies on fraternization with prisoner's wives, help the kids in his community, live by his principles, steal weapons, convince Meg to go away with him --- enough already!
Sheridan's fractured screenplay throws all this at us helter-skelter but doesn't allow the talented Day-Lewis enough screen time or even the words to present a portrait of a man trying to rebuild his life
without any help.
The writing is utterly lame, too formal for authenticity and too stilted and awkward to convey a deeper meaning or even sound good (compare Meg and Danny's flat kitchen
confrontation, which sounds like 'Melrose Place,' with DeNiro and Bridget Fonda's scene in 'Jackie Brown' where they talk about her picture of Japan). Day-Lewis has two scenes where he has enough words
to express and develop his character, and they come alive. During the rest of the movie he's mostly a close-mouthed gym rat. Silent characters can work very well (ref: Pruitt Vince Taylor's
magnetic performance in "Heavy") but only when the director knows how to use that silence to communicate something. Sheridan can't pull it off, so Danny comes off as rather a dull-witted ox.
Measured pacing doesn't work when the lines and visuals aren't interesting. On and on and on, more people wearing homey-looking sweaters and droopy coats confronting each other. There are too
many scenes of people running through streets. Camera work is sometimes first-rate (the aerial shots) and sometimes total garbage. During the all-important boxing scenes, you can't tell what's
going on. Day-Lewis has decent boxing form but the fight scenes look patched together from very short takes. The camera keeps flying around, resulting in a barrage of MTV-style fast cuts that
make it impossible to tell who's winning or losing or progressing or tiring or anything. Totally unacceptable in a film that relies on boxing as a metaphor for destructive political violence.
Of
course, there is a riot after a big fight, and this sequence is handled very well, with great energy and chillingly effective shots of riot police storming a crowd. The last twenty minutes of the
film are very, very good, energetic and tense with a genuine surprise. "The Boxer" presents a realistic view of Irish nationalism and political conflict and brings the horror of living in a country
occupied by another country's army alive, but drains the vivid story by losing track of the hero's point of view, scenes that make you go 'So?" and too many shots of people running around in the
streets. Good intentions, poor execution. Very disappointing. Worth renting only if you want to see Day-Lewis' ripped and sweaty torso. |
