In The Boxer, Danny Flynn, Daniel Day-Lewis, is a former supporter of the IRA who`s been in a Belfast prison for 14 years. Now finally released and eager to start a new life, he finds himself ostracised by his former comrades. As a kid he wanted to be a boxer, and he persuades his old trainer, Ike, Ken Stott, to help him start a non-sectarian gym. He also starts seeing the girl he left behind, Maggie, Emily Watson. She was 16 then; now she has a teenage son of her own, and her husband`s in prison - in today`s divided Belfast, they face a difficult and dangerous future.
Jim Sheridan takes a strong stand against hard-liners in his new film, especially the out-of-touch extremists in the IRA who still adhere to the violence which is destroying any hope for the future. Though the film, which Sheridan scripted with his usual collaborator Terry George, spends rather too much time on the boxing scenes, it`s still quite a powerful evocation of life in northern Ireland today (though it was actually filmed in Dublin). Daniel Day-Lewis, in his third film for Sheridan, is very good, and Emily Watson confirms the talent she displayed in Breaking The Waves. The ending seems rather too pat, but for the most part The Boxer is an intelligent, provocative piece of cinema, with something quite bold to say in the Irish context.
