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 salubrious time to think about the genre that Considine is working in: the boxing film. Asked to list some of the genre’s characteristics, or the average film-goer might say: a working-lesson setting,predictable rise and fall, lots of triumphalism, or 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 enormous dent, either at the box office or in the public consciousness.
Considine’s moment 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, or 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 kind: it’s homegrown.
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Source: guardian.co.uk