Wonderful Movie

Film Perfection

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Shiner is a watchable movie, and decent enough in places, but this is mainly down to Michael Caine's top notch performance. But the film itself flatters to deceive, and scratch away at the surface, and it certainly leaves a lot to be desired. The problem is a weak script and unrealistic plot that tries to gloss over its vulnerabilities. Caine plays a shady boxing promoter, who after years of trying to make it big, finally has a contender for a title belt - who just happens to be his son. But the problem is the script can't decide if Caine is a boxing promoter or a gangster. And the suspicion is that this is a wannabe gangster movie with the boxing as a distraction. Caine is not nasty or heartless enough to be a convincing gangster - he leaves all the unpleasant stuff to his two henchmen (played excellently by Frank Harper and Andy Serkis). Which makes his latter scenes (with the pregnant wife of Serkis, for example) too superimposed to be effective enough. But this shouldn't detract from Caine's performance which carries the whole movie, and is a must for fans. It's just other elements along the way that fail Shiner. Marsden, for example, is a nightmare piece of casting gone wrong. We are supposed to think he is a big time boxer yet he looks like he's just stepped out of a boy band and is the least convincing 'contender' in boxing cinematic history. The movie won't live long in the memory, but it is a good vehicle for Caine to yet again display his enormous talents, which stops it being as mundane as it should be.

First off, this movie leaves you in a limbo mood wise. You don't know what to feel. So much so that you don't feel bad for Caines character when his son gets murdered (which was actually mostly due to bad editing). The script was too bland. None of the situations matter as you watch them. The soundtrack, or lack there of (if there was it wasn't good enough to even remember) does not help it one bit. Only good surprise to this movie was Andy Serkis' performance. It was on par if not better than Caine's. The story would have probably gone better off if Serkis would have killed him. Because quite frankly you don't feel any kind of redemption in the climax. Just a feeling of lack of feeling, if ya feel me. Basically this movie massively lacks draw. Leaving the audience alienated throughout the entire thing.

Michael Caine plays very much to type in this film about a tough East-End boxing promoter. The film, which is not, it quickly becomes apparent, a sports movie (the only fight scene comes early and is deliberately anticlimactic), but it seems to be struggling to decide what exactly it is. In part, it is the story of the death of a dream; but in part, it is a thriller and these two parts don't really get on. The thriller element is weakened by the fact that because we only see the story of Caine's character's decline, we have no way to judge what malign forces may be behind it; but in fact, there is plenty of material to explain his fall without requiring a sinister plot, and so the thriller obscures the portrait of a man. In fact, the resulting hybrid is so anaemic as a whole that it almost feels stylised, I don't think intentionally, but there's a flatness that gives the movie a feel of its own, albeit not a successful one. Yet there are some interesting ideas behind the plot; it's a shame they're so poorly worked out.

Sir Michael Caine seems to be spending most of his time these days on home soil making home-grown movies, some good (little voice), and some appalling (shadow run). Shiner is Caine back to his best, and it's a role in which he didn't have to act as he was virtually playing a character that mirrored his own life, a working class south Londoner, that has moved on to better things. Billy Shiner Simpson, is a streetwise boxing promoter and organizer of un-licensed or illegal bouts. He not only has connections within the criminal underworld but he also has his fingers in many a dodgy pie. He finally has the option of fulfilling his dream of a major Legal bout in the form of a title fight between his son Eddie, the boy from blighty, matched up against Martin Landau's American fighter. Shiner has put all his money on his lad winning the fight and the title, but all is not well, His partner is pocketing money given to hire fighters for the preliminary bouts, his son is loosing his nerve, The old bill want to arrest him for his role in the death of an unlicensed boxer, and the night is about to get a lot more sinister and deadly, as after loosing the fight, his son is shot dead by a faceless assassin. Caine plays his part brilliantly, similar in style to his portrayal of Jack Carter in 1971's Get Carter, Shiners character is not as cool as Carter in his quest for revenge and is a bit more desperate, but every bit as ruthless. Aided by his two bodyguards, Stoney and Mel (played brilliantly by Andy 'Gollum' Serkis) He must now put the pieces of his shattered dream together and punish those responsible for his sons death. a gritty and uncompromising look at London's boxing culture made even more effective that the character of Shiner Simpson, though fictional for this movie, is a composite amalgam of a group people that really exist in today's London. This is one of Caine's best roles of his long career and certainly his best since the turn of the Milena.