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Best movie of this year hands down!

Wonderful Movie

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Overall bland but nicely shot film centering around boxer and former Provisional IRA volunteer Day-Lewis's release from prison after serving 14 years for "taking the rap" and attempting to go straight in his old Belfast neighborhood. Watson and Scott work fine in their supporting roles, but Cox and McSorley's talents are wasted by rushed character development. Despite Day-Lewis' three years of boxing preparation mixed with the unusual outcome of a real-life bout, not a single gripping boxing match is delivered throughout the entire film—with fires and brawls going on outside of the ring (plus the intense climatic sequence which seems out-of-place in this otherwise incredibly dull flick) it's really hard to take an interest in the sport of boxing.** (out of four)

Danny Flynn (Daniel Day-Lewis) was imprisoned in his youth for I.R.A. involvement. He is released after 14 years. His old girlfriend Maggie Hamill (Emily Watson) is married to Danny's former best friend. He returns to his old neighborhood to a cold reception. In prison, he refused to openly support the I.R.A. but he also never named names. He wants to live life free from the political turmoil. He reopens the old boxing club allowing neighborhood kids and himself to fight in non-sectarian bouts. Maggie's father Joe Hamill (Brian Cox) is working for a ceasefire, prisoner releases, and ultimately peace. Maggie's husband is in prison and she still has conflicted feelings for her old love Flynn. When the cops show their support for the gym, I.R.A. hothead Harry (Gerard McSorley) is angered and the gym gets fired on. Later at a boxing match, police chief is killed in a car bomb which ends in chaos.The boxing is the least compelling part of the movie. This works more as a love story between DDL and Watson amidst the conflicts. This is like a slow moving romance. That part works by the simple force of will from the two lead actors. Brian Cox is fine but it would work better if he's harder on DDL. Gerard McSorley is basically doing that part for the movie. There are some great actors doing fine work but the movie doesn't add up to greatness.

I cannot imagine a better example of religion's failure than the war in Northern Ireland. The land that we celebrate in March as a place of happiness is one where Catholics and Protestants bathed the ground with the blood of their young.Danny (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a former IRA member who has spent the last 14 years in prison. he just wants to get on with his life and forget the war, but it is still going on and cannot be ignored. He also has unresolved personal issues with Maggie (Emily Watson) to address. They have to sneak around as she is a symbol - a wife with a husband in prison for his activities.Outstanding performances by Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown , There Will Be Blood, Gangs of New York) and Emily Watson (Hilary and Jackie, Breaking the Waves, Punch-Drunk Love), and Brian Cox (Zodiac, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy) as the man who was trying to establish a peace.As you would expect of a film set in the war, there is no comedy or romance, just a dark, dirty, grim tale of life as it really is, not what we wish it to be. A brilliant cast giving us a needed reminder of the cost of war.

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.