To me, this movie is perfection.

Simply Perfect

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Although the movie contains a lot of predictable Ridley Scott violent action, the subtlety of the performances turned in by James McAvoy (always good) and Mark Strong is remarkable. McAvoy plays a cop named Max and Strong the bandit Sternwood, who wounds Max in the getaway after a heist as the movie opens. He shoots to wound, not kill, Max.That said, it is Mark Strong's acting that is the focus of this review. I was not familiar with him or his work, but apparently he is always cast as a villain. The duplicitous and convoluted plot of "Punch" sets up McAvoy as the protagonist and Strong the antagonist, with other characters having little to do except cause Max and Sternwood physical pain and mental anguish.Despite all the mayhem and noise, however, Strong (Sternwood) steals the scene from McAvoy twice, first with a sentence and a look, and later with just body language and a look. Quite amazing really. See for yourself.

I came across this movie on Netflix streaming movies. It has a fine cast and an interesting summary, so I figured it would be a pretty good watch. While it has some serious flaws, including the last 20 minutes or so relying on almost non-stop gunfights, it also has some interesting moments. First about the title, I suppose you have to pick something. Much of the story has to do with stuff in containers, those large containers that get stacked on ocean-going ships. Stuff like smuggled guns and the sort. All those containers have to be stored somewhere when they are not on a ship, and the containers in this story are in a yard called The Punch. And as the good guys and the bad guys drive into the storage yard is a sign, "Welcome to the Punch." Yep, that's why it has that title.As this movie opens we see a cops and robbers chase, involving cop James McAvoy as Max Lewinsky and robber Mark Strong as Jacob Sternwood. Max fails badly and is shot in the knee by Jacob as the bandits run away. That happened a few years before the time of the main story, Jacob has disappeared while a mostly healed Max daily has to use a big syringe to draw fluid out of his damaged knee. Max has of course never gotten over that injury and Jacob's escape, he longs for the day when he can reverse that.So the story involves Jacob's son getting shot in a robbery, as the son dies from the wounds Jacob comes out of hiding near the Arctic Circle, he wants to find the one responsible for his son's death. And Max wants to even the score with Jacob.There are crosses and double crosses, there are unscrupulous politicians involved. The story is often hard to follow, not made easier by the mumbling at times, so much of the dialog is undecipherable. But I was mostly entertained. Not a bad movie per se, but also not a very good one.

"Welcome to the Punch" is only an adequate film from 2013. It is currently available on NetFlix Instant Download Streaming. It is written and directed by Eran Creevy. Welcome To The Punch made me leave the cinema feeling very confused. Not because of the storyline, no. The tale is set in a blue-tinted, modern day London. Max Lewinsky (James McAvoy) is still pretty hung up over being shot by bad guy Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong) and gets his one chance at revenge when Sternwood returns to London after his son Ruan (Elyes Gabel) is shot himself and severely injured. Simple enough. Whilst the casting was strong, the acting solid (especially McAvoy's portrayal of a man obsessed with revenge and filled with anger and self-hatred) and the film itself is shot beautifully, I couldn't help but leave feeling I'd been robbed of a real movie, a real ending. Whilst there are moments when unexpected gunshots will cause you jump a good couple of feet out the chair, there are only so many shoot-outs you can sit through before wondering if anyone even knows how to use a gun. Especially when the people using them are supposedly some of the best marksmen around. So whilst there are tales of corruption, unexplained changes of heart and some shocking, upsetting moments, the storyline becomes relatively predictable too early on for my liking and the film seems to come to a sudden, abrupt end. If you're looking to be entertained for just under a couple of hours without questioning too much, this is the film for you. If like me you expect more from a movie with a cast and the budget shown, prepare to leave the screen feeling as if you've been poked a few times in the arm. I gave it only 4 stars Dale Haufrect

WELCOME TO THE PUNCH is a monumental failure of a film, even worse than the recent SWEENEY remake directed by Nick Love. The blame for this film's failure can be laid at the door of writer/director Eran Creevy, a guy who displays a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to action direction and indeed writing a decent script.Essentially this is a crime film that sees the central characters investigating a flimsy, over-contrived back story that actually has nothing to do with any of them. This story - a predictable mystery with all of the non-surprising surprises you'd expect - is so trivial as to be barely worth writing down, and yet they manage to drag it out to feature length thanks to plenty of padding and unnecessarily filler material. The action, when it hits, is ludicrous, either inappropriate slow motion or random "pop up and shoot" bad guy moments, like in the laughable climax.The direction is equally poor, with Creevy making the bad decision of over-utilising the 'teal effect' for this film. This is where the entire film is tinted blue and orange, and it's such a cliché that I can't believe directors are still incorporating it into their movies. It makes for a muted, artificial look that dragged my enjoyment of the film down even further. It's a pity that a decent cast has been wasted in this non-starter of a film, with reliable performances from James McAvoy and Mark Strong as the leads, alongside David Morrissey and Peter Mullan; Jason Flemyng and Elyas Gabel provide cameo appearances but are equally wasted. And, indeed, the whole thing is a monumental waste of time.