FILM Review: Welcome to the Punch

Noisy effects drown out any interest in the story, writs Tymon Smith.

Welcome to the Punch

Director: Eran Creevy

Cast: James McAvoy, Mark Strong, Andrea Riseborough, Johnny Harris, Daniel Mays, David Morrissey, Peter Mullan

THERE'S some good pedigree in the British crime genre stretching from Get Carter to The Long Good Friday, Gangster Number One, Layer Cake and the humorous helter-skelter high jinks of Guy Ritchie's early films.

Unfortunately Creevy's over-styled, uneven and often obvious addition to the genre leaves hardly any mark despite its potentially strong cast, and the pairing of McAvoy and Strong as men on different sides of the thin blue line forced into partnership to uncover a conspiracy in a very green and blue-lit London.

Policeman Max Lewinsky (McAvoy) was shot in the knee three years ago by master criminal Jacob Sternwood (Strong) and has never been the same since.

When Sternwood's son is found shot in the stomach, his father is forced to come out of hiding in Iceland to find out what's happened, giving Lewinsky a chance to put his nemesis behind bars. Problem is young Ruan Sternwood was in way over his head in a conspiracy that will pit Lewinsky and Sternwood against corrupt cops, politicians, corporations and mercenaries.

While it opens with a suitably high-concept, thrilling chase-cum-robbery sequence, the punches and bullets soon drown out the characters and our interest in their personalities. Creevy overcompensates by shooting everything in heavy filters and throwing a lot of music video effects into his action scenes that makes them overbearing and out of synch with the rest of the film.

By the time we reach the punch of the title and discover everyone is predictably tainted, it doesn't really matter and we don't care.

What works in the gritty Brit crime movies we've come to love is that they are more than a collection of stylish sequences full of gunfire and raised voices - they're about characters we care about. Here we don't, thanks to a script that gives very little with which its cast can work.

Strong, one of my favourite British actors, is given a small chance to make his character interesting, but once the machine guns come out and things explode, everything descends into a predictably loud, insignificant mess.

It remains to be seen what McAvoy will make of the twisted, very dirty cop he's playing next in the adaptation of Irvine Welsh's Filth. For now this is the second style-over-substance appearance he's made, following his turn in Danny Boyle's Trance earlier this year, and it packs less punch than a soft slap on the head.