Distributor / studio: GSC Movies / Worldview Ent.
Rated: 18
Genre: Action, crime, thriller, drama
Running Time: 99 minutes
Director & writer: Eran Creevy
Cast: James McAvoy, Mark Strong, Andrea Riseborough, David Morrissey
Synopsis: Former criminal Jacob Sternwood is forced to return to London from his Icelandic hideaway when his son is involved in a heist gone wrong. This gives detective Max Lewinsky one last chance to catch the man he has always been after. As they face off, they start to uncover a deeper conspiracy they both need to solve in order to survive.
Verdict: A slow, humourless, predictable action thriller with spectacular, powerful gun action sequences forced by characters with overly poor aiming and needlessness to reload. Seriously, 3 guys against 1 seated down facing each other and yet they require like dozen of bullets each to hit that one guy. The cast's performance is strong but unfortunately it's for a depth-less plot, which Eran Creevy resolves to confuse with in order to intrigue. Ultimately, Welcome to the Punch is just not very fun to sit through. If anyone tells you they liked this film, it's likely that they're just being pretentious.
Girlfriend's opinion: "Pretty boring at the beginning and then it becomes confusing and cool at the same time. By the way, why's the title Welcome to the Punch?"
Malaysian censorship: I think it was completely uncut at the local press screening. Other than the language, there isn't really anything to chop anyway. You can actually watch it at home, the film was already released elsewhere much earlier this year.
Rating: 1.5 / 5
Movie stills / images: View 'em here.
[SPOILER SECTION BEGINS HERE]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most memorable quote: "I'm paid to catch crooks, not get them elected," says Max Lewinsky (James McAvoy) in a scene to brush off political campaign manager Jane Badham (Natasha Little).
You call this an ending...? After like an hour of an unimpressive so-called "cat-and-mouse game" between the police detective Max and his long-time wanted criminal Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong), they... fucking team up (ha-ha-ha) to fight against the real bad guy who's revealed to be, of course, the police chief Thomas Geiger (David Morrissey from AMC's The Walking Dead). Anyone who's seen too many cliched films of this genre would've guessed it from the start. The end climax comes down to a final showdown at "Punch 119" or "The Punch", which is one of the containers at a container yard. Funny thing is that how Max and Sternwood find this place is by coincidentally seeing a note on his dead partner's (Andrea Riseborough) hand, which doesn't make sense 'cause even I, a non-police detective, could remember "Punch 119" without jotting it down anywhere. How she easily gives up and gets killed in the film is kinda stupid as well but I'm not gonna discuss that scene. Anyway, in this container, weapons were set up by Geiger to be smuggled by scapegoats who'll be caught for political purposes. One of the scapegoats is Sternwood's son, who dies earlier in the film, which pisses him off. In the end, they kill Geiger and very predictably again, Max lets Sternwood go instead of arresting him. Max's leg is fucked up, causing him to become a wreck for years and yet this idiot's able to team up with him, trust him so easily and lets him go even though he should be hating him to the bones. Police arrives and Max stands there like an idiot and raises his hands to be arrested and face accusations of murder, assaulting colleagues, and smuggling weapons. But of course, the closing credit rolls. Why? 'Cause director-writer Eran Creevy probably had no idea how else to end this garbage movie of his.
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