The Boxer - review

After Jim Sheridan did a great job telling the story of six Irishmen jailed for a decade and a half for an IRA attack they had nothing to do with, he joins up again with Daniel Day-Lewis in The Boxer. The movie tells the story of Danny Flynn, a Belfast boxer, home from 14 years in prison, who thinks he can escape the politics around him. Instead, he's caught between the hawks and the doves in the IRA. Renewing his teenage love affair with Maggie (Emily Watson), who's married with a prisoner, doesn't help much either. And when his reopened boxing school accepts police donations, the lines are easily drawn. Offering no sentimentality and a realistic and pacifistic view of Northern Ireland, The Boxer is a good movie.