Film Review: Welcome To The Punch
A slick, stylised London is home to Eran Creevy’s fast paced crime thriller that has as many great British actors as it does subplots. Detective Max Lewinsky (James McAvoy) is given a chance to put old demons to rest when his nemesis’ son dies, forcing crime lord Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong) to return to London.
The film centres on Lewinsky and partner Sarah Hawks (Andrea Riseborough) tracking down his foe, Sternwood, despite their bosses trying to pass them off to another case. Immediately, Lewinsky’s bosses, Bartnick (Daniel Mays) and Geiger (David Morrissey), are seen as shady, bent cops with their hands tied by schemes out of their control. Set against the run up to an election with a primary focus on Britain’s rising gun crime, Geiger’s relationship with the opposition’s campaign leader has an obvious outcome that foreshadows any building tension. Peter Mullan and Johnny Harris play further villainous characters with their usual fervour, despite being at times clumsy with dialogue that some of the other actors seem to stumble over.
The action begins from the off, and the relentless pacing quickly turns the film from a cat and mouse thriller to a morality tale webbed in political conspiracy and double crosses. The plot twists are spotted easily, and many story lines are killed off just as they begin to get rather interesting. The constant shifting of allegiances and there being so little time given to exploring any of the characters means that most of the cast are bland; good or bad and nothing in between. The moral ambiguity that the plot tries to explore is lost in the pacing, and not enough is known about any of the characters for the tale to take full effect on the audience.
Modern Hollywood influences are easily spotted; the soundtrack starts like Cliff Martinez’s Drive and steals Hans Zimmer’s bassy tones infamous in Nolan’s Inception and the Batman trilogy. London has never looked so much like LA or Hong Kong; the crane shots over Canary Wharf, lit by the windows of skyscrapers are mesmerising to watch. This vision of London is fantastic to see, a great breakaway from the standard of gangster flicks we’re used to, and at times the locations feel futuristic. Executive producer Ridley Scott’s guidance is felt, and it looks incredible. However the classic tropes of British crime thrillers aren’t all thrown out the window. For inexplicable reasons Lewinsky and Hawks both force cockney accents – which neither can fully perform nor pull off.
Despite the impressive cast and fresh take on the Brit flick, Welcome to the Punch has too much going on with not enough time to let the stories play out. The film could have benefitted from another 20 minutes as the ending feels rushed and open ended – but without cause for a sequel. It’s an enjoyable hour and a half, but it could have easily been a glossy episode of The Bill.