While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

As a boxer he has a reason to rebuild a life around a community-centered activity, the only one he knows. It's hard to imagine how the ultimate dramatic quality would be served were Danny a construction worker or a bartender or having virtually any other occupation. Then you have the metaphor by contrast: boxing is a warlike activity and ostensibly consistent with the conflict of the Troubles... yet it is also a supreme discipline, done well, and a perfect substitute for war where (some fools and users say) honor and greatness can be achieved....For my complete review of this movie and for other movie and book reviews, please visit my site TheCoffeeCoaster.com.Brian Wright Copyright 2009

This is a most excellent movie and should garner a higher rating. The acting is superb by everyone. This movie really opens your eyes to the day to day living conditions during the days when terror reined in Northern Ireland. It has a great plot and some good boxing scenes and more then enough tension for us old timers who still remember what that is. Yes the tension in this movie builds and builds to the final conflict between the forces of change and those that want things to stay the same. This movie is one that I could watch again immediately just because it is that good. I will add it to my growing collection. Some will find this movie slow moving and perhaps even boring but thats typical of todays movie goer's. They want to see the monster immediately and there must be at least 10 violent deaths per minute or they fall asleep and give the movie a bad rating.

After accomplishing masterpieces with "My Left Foot" and "In the Name of the Father", Jim Sheridan totally went in the wrong direction with "The Boxer". I don't think that the issue should be whether one views the IRA positively or negatively (this movie treats them pretty mercilessly). The issue is that, contrary to what this movie portrays, the Irish and English can't agree on things through boxing matches. And they really could have done without all the love stuff.In conclusion, Sheridan, Daniel Day-Lewis and Emily Watson have all done much better than this. I don't know why they felt that they had to do this movie.

A former IRA man gets out of the can after 14 years and tries to rebuild his life in his old rundown Belfast neighbourhood.This is a film that tries to cover a lot of ground and get a lot in. It has natural dramatic plus points in being set in a community that has been wrecked by civil war but has the hope of a new dawn. If only people would let it rise.Prison does a lot to people. It is like a virus. It wears people down and changes them. Makes them harder and sexless. This is well portrayed in this movie. Boyle (Day-Lewis) has been inside almost all his adult life and is immature, but well contained.Boxing is not the heart of this movie -- indeed it could live without it completely. It gives a dramatic centre, while the real drama is elsewhere and the message is not contained in the punches. In lots of ways it is a ticket selling con.Director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot/In The Name of the Father) has done well with the limited material that forms the script. He uses a cool blue to replace the cold grey of the real Belfast. This prevents the place looking as dreadful as it really is and losing the audience.Ken Stott plays an alcoholic boxing trainer who has a good heart and wants for the best. Sadly I don't put great store in men that decide they want to live their life in a stupor. Stott is a good actor though.There is also a love story in this movie with Day-Lewis starting top pick up the pieces with his old flame Emily Watson. However the situation is complicated as her close relations don't fully approve (for reasons I don't want to go in to here.)Any film that involves boxing has to nod to films like Rocky and Raging Bull -- and this film acknowledges it without borrowing too much. Indeed this is not really a boxing picture (as I said before) more a film about a man that uses boxing as he has very little else to cling on to.The real weak point is the way ex-terrorist Danny (Lewis) is welcomed back and made a hero out of. Wouldn't his criminal record not prevent him from being welcome on the British mainland? Equally how good a boxer is he? Can't tell from the evidence here. Also you need a license to box in the UK -- and these are not handed out willy-nilly.Small quibbles aside The Boxer is a better film than I thought it would be. It doesn't rub my nose in it any longer than necessary and all the thing really needs is something to climax on. What they come up with here is pretty weak and open.