Word: boxer
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...critic of mild demeanor (aren't we all?) sat in a screening room, sucking on a Ricola as he watched The Boxer, with Daniel Day-Lewis as Danny Flynn, a Belfast prize fighter unjustly jailed on a bombing rap, and Emily Watson as the girl he left behind. The critic dutifully tabulated each blunt plot point, each refried cliche ("I'm not a killer, Maggie, but this place makes me want to kill"). And yet, when Danny's nemesis did something monstrously rotten, the critic was so enraged by the dastardly act that he had to stop himself from spitting...
...renounces political nuance for emotional bullying and old Hollywood-style blarney. The movie's forebears are '30s Warner Bros. melodramas like Kid Galahad (a fighter and his trainer KO the crooks) and Angels with Dirty Faces (the Dead End Kids learn who's the real tough guy). The Boxer could even be a Going My Way without priests--it's that hokey...
...make the gritty fantasy plausible. Day-Lewis very nearly does. His laser stare and world-class rope skipping, his very devotion to the project, elevate the film to check-it-out status and get the crowd cheering for him and his quest. Even in a slim tale like The Boxer, Day-Lewis is the serious-actor, movie-star goods...
...Boxer Riddick Bowe joins the Marines...
DIED. WILLIE PASTRANO, 62, fleet-foot boxer whose nimble moves inspired Muhammad Ali; of cancer; in New Orleans. A chubby child who was the butt of many a schoolyard joke, Pastrano dropped the pounds--and his opponents--in the ring, becoming world light-heavyweight champion in the 1960s...