Welcome to the Punch - Nemici di sangue

the film opens with our lead character London City Detective Max Lewinsky chasing a gang of thieves making their getaway on motorcycles after a bank heist, eventually Det Max gets shot in his right thigh by the leader of this gang and the criminal mastermind Jacob Sternwood. we then go further in time exactly three years from that incident, Sternwwod's son is in way over his head and he is bleeding from a bullet wound after a heist gone wrong in the end he gets busted in the airport and taken away to a hospital, this calls for his father Jacob to go back to London in order to help his son escape and settle the score with whoever framed his boy but detective Lewinsky is eager to get his revenge by any means necessary and the hunt starts.

with a good supporting cast that involves Andrea Riseborough, David Morrisey, Peter Mullan, Daniel Mays, Johnny Harris and a Cameo from Jason Flemyng besides a very good Marc Strong as the cold blooded killer yet the kind of villain that you'd sympathies with, it's James McAvoy who steals the show with a stellar performance.

The Dialogues are good, you feel like it was written by someone who knows what he is doing, on the other hand the story is not that good but it's OK, like so many people who reviewed this film i had a problem with the plot being predictable most of the time which is bad in this kind of films.

this is an action film so let's talk about the gunfights, yeah it's set in London and yeah we know that cops in London don't use guns but in this movie something happens and the authorities are forced to use firepower i won't go deep in this matter because i might spoil the movie for you, anyway the action junkies wont be disappointed with this it's got a lot of shootouts, a good final shootout that reminds us of the excellent video game Max Payne(bad film), in fact in this film i don't know what is it with the characters but i find most of them extremely trigger happy, American like trigger happy not the usual gunfights from the UK.

Overall this is a very watchable action flick that brings us back the nostalgia of the 80's and the 90's with good performances from the whole cast and good job by the director.

My Rating: 7/10

The plot has several twists and turns, and thriller elements are catchy to follow - but it seems, however, that the screenwriter was very eager to add sophistication and all this resulted in a series of unlikely and strained scenes. Heists are seldom carried out with stylish clothes and technology in-sync, and ambitious corruption is not a sign of the UK police force - to name a few odd things... The ending scenes and the very end are scheming as well.

The male cast is strong and even, particularly James McAvoy as Max Lewinsky, Mark Strong as Jacob Sternwood and Peter Mullan as Roy Edwards. Female characters tend to be sketchy and were uninviting to me.

Although no Boyle or Ritchie, Welcome to the Punch is still more than a B-film. Violence is not playful, crime is gloomy and good persons tend to die as well...

I've been waiting to see 'Welcome to the Punch' ever since I heard about it (and managed to miss its cinema release). Mark Strong is such a talented actor. I've seen him in a few films which weren't very good, yet his performance has made it worthwhile. Then you have James McAvoy, who always turns in a great performance no matter what he's in. How could I lose? I did. Welcome to the Punch is billed as 'Britain's answer to Heat.' If that's the best we can do, I think we should let Hollywood win on this one. This is nothing like Heat. Never before have so many talented - British - actors been assembled and produced something so average.

I won't say it's bad, just totally mediocre. It's about policeman, James McAvoy, seeking revenge on the gangster, Mark Strong, who shot him during a previous robbery. Nothing special plot-wise, but with such a good cast you should expect them to make something more out of it. However, the best part of the film was the way it's filmed. London has never looked so cool and stylish, plus it seems to be shot using some sort of blue/green filter to give it all an ultra-cool look.

If you really want to see another British gangster movie then this one isn't bad. Then again, perhaps it's worse than bad - it's disappointing.

http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/

Inspired by Hong Kong 'heroic bloodshed' flicks, this hardnosed cops 'n' robbers tale certainly lives up to its name. James McAvoy's supercop exhibits a dogged intensity in his hunt for Mark Strong's antiheroic supercrim. During their heated cat-and-mouse game, the two uncover a conspiracy much bigger than their own dispute.

The two leads keep things moving along nicely with their ambiguous dynamic, with a supporting cast of familiar faces picking up back-end duties rather nicely. Special mention must go to Shane Meadows favourite Johnny Harris who, as a cold-blooded ex-military henchman, exudes a barely-restrained predatory animalism, familiar to those who saw him in This is England '86. Top performances, decent pacing, and an ending which refuses to settle it all in quite the neat and tidy way one would expect.

'Welcome to the Punch' is a solid idea that becomes a little overblown for its own good in the final act; clearly inspired by the crime classics like Mann's 'Heat', it doesn't pull it off as well. That and some pacing issues aside though, the terrific performances from a top-notch who's who British cast, including James McEvoy, who only has one obvious accent slip in the entire film, Andrea Riseborough, who can do anything, and the brooding, incredible Mark Strong, who almost steals the thing doing little more than looking around. Stylish to within an inch of its life, the fantastically brooding score to match the fantastically brooding faces on screen, and the gorgeous photography carry it through with unexpected panache. Nothing you don't expect, but basically what 'The Sweeney' wanted to be.