Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

fredtee I like the scene in, I presume, Great Britain, where the Rich and Famous immaculately dressed with excited young gorgeous women sip champagne seated at candelabra-lighted dining tables watching the boxing match in the center of the room. Danny Flynn, the white guy beats the black guy (no name) to a bloody pulp, but the referee will not stop the fight. Disgusted, Danny Flynn leaves the ring, while some obviously important guy yells out, "you'll never fight here again."It is an interesting and not-so-subtle commentary on discrimination in British High Society, while the Northern Irish religious-sectarian war, the focus of the film, drags on.

PWNYCNY At first the story is murky, but then it picks up steam and by the end of the movie, the audience can feel that they watched something meaningful. Here, the director is using a love story to make a point regarding the divisive nature of politics. This movie shows an entire community inhabited by reasonably intelligent and decent people divided along political lines, with tragic consequences. What makes this story more ironic is that the principal character who now rejects political violence is a boxer, and a good one too. The man who hurts people for sport wants nothing to do with fighting. This alone makes this movie worth watching. Daniel Day-Lewis is a wonderful actor. He brings an intensity to the title role which carries this movie. At first the scenario, a man recently released from prison coming on to an old girlfriend who is now married, seems contrived, but in this movie it works. Yet, the main theme of this movie is not about romantic love but about conflict and healing. That an entire community is divided by a wall serves as a metaphor for what are obstacles to communication, not only on the social but on the personal level as well. This movie is about what happens when someone tries to breach that wall.

kevintinsley Daniel Day-Lewis proves here that he is one of the best actors in film today by immersing himself so far into a role as to be almost unrecognizable, as in Gangs of N.Y. Here he plays Danny Flynn, a boxer and former IRA radical just released from prison who tries to return home to rekindle a love lost because of his prison term. Emily Watson does a fine turn here as the old flame, Maggie, now forbidden to Danny by her marriage to his best friend, still in prison for the same reasons as Danny. Some of the plot is murky, with the reasons for the IRA's antagonism towards Danny never properly explained. However, Brian Cox as the IRA chief, also Maggie's father, and Ken Stott, who plays Danny's old boxing coach, Ike, who is now a drunk living in a homeless shelter give well rounded performances. Some knowledge of the Troubles in Ireland goes a long way in helping to understand some of this movie, but I don't think it was geared to a U.S. audience, hence its low profile on the list of Day-Lewis's fine performances. Still, he and Watson's chemistry, along with the old school type of filming by director Jim Sheridan make this one of the movies I missed the first time around that I will recommend to friends as must see viewing.

zitrinr This is a very good movie, although on a now familiar topic of the Northern Ireland conflict. Its greatness, though, stems from an extraordinary performance from that most extraordinary of movie actors, Daniel Day-Lewis.The strength of Day-Lewis's portrayal of the ex-con boxer who is released from to return to a city divided by war and police barriers, is in the silence of the character. Day-Lewis's ability to convey depths of emotion through a look, a nod, a glance, a hand movement, is what makes him perhaps the best actor working (when he decides to work) today.This role, and the excellent Emily Watson's performance, allow this movie to rise well above the potentially trite (though always riveting) subject matter to make this film most worthwhile.