Can Paddy Considine's Journeyman land a knockout blow for British boxing movies?

13 March 2018 06:00
Despite the sport’s popularity in the UK, Britain has never produced a fight flick anywhere near the likes of Rocky or Raging Bull. Can it ever change?As UK cinemas prepare for the release of Paddy Considine’s new feature Journeyman, it’s a good time to think about the genre that Considine is working in: the boxing film. Asked to list some of the genre’s characteristics, the average movie-goer might say: a working-class setting, predictable rise and fall, lots of triumphalism, and something else . Americans. In spite of the sport’s Anglo-American genesis and its still immense popularity in the UK, few British films about the fight game – compared with the heft of Rocky or Raging Bull or Creed or Million Dollar Baby – have ever made a big dent, either at the box office or in the public consciousness.Considine’s second film as director in fact turns away from the expectations of genre. His is a humane and realistic depiction of a fighter battling a brain injury. It eschews rags-to-riches tales, heroic comebacks or greedy mob fixers, and focuses simply on a wealthy professional athlete facing a heartbreaking situation. And beyond the film’s unexpected treatment of familiar sports terrain, there’s something else about Journeyman that’s nice: it’s homegrown. Continue readingread full article

Source: TheGuardian