Welcome to the Punch

CinemaSerf

When his son is shot, "Sternwood" (Mark Strong) has to return from his Icelandic hideaway to get to the bottom of it all. That puts him back squarely into the sights of cop "Lewinsky" (James McCoy) who has an old (and painful) grudge. What now ensues is a really formulaic and unimaginative drama, though, as both men realise that they are being played by a higher, manipulative and malevolent power and conclude they are better together. Despite a decent cast, including the usually reliable Andrea Riseborough ("Hawks") it all just fails to ignite. The dark, eerie, photography loses it's potency pretty quickly, as do the flashbacks filling in most of the backstory - leaving us with a pretty generic crime thriller that is pretty light on thrills. Forgettable stuff, sorry.