Michael Ledo Max (James McAvoy) got shot in the knee by a major league criminal Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong). Three years later Max's knee still bother's him as does the fact he let one get away. Max teams up with Sarah (Andrea Riseborough) as it appears they may have a second chance at him. In this partnership Max has the brains and Sarah has the kahunas.The film is a bit twisty and it is easy to get lost if you don't pay attention. This is a crime action adventure which has its fair share of drama, enough to slow it up for a breather. The action scenes are spread out to a finale at the OK Corral. It is worth a rental if you are a fan of British crime movies, but not the one you would want to wean yourself on.Parental Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity.

TxMike I came across this movie on Netflix streaming movies. It has a fine cast and an interesting summary, so I figured it would be a pretty good watch. While it has some serious flaws, including the last 20 minutes or so relying on almost non-stop gunfights, it also has some interesting moments. First about the title, I suppose you have to pick something. Much of the story has to do with stuff in containers, those large containers that get stacked on ocean-going ships. Stuff like smuggled guns and the sort. All those containers have to be stored somewhere when they are not on a ship, and the containers in this story are in a yard called The Punch. And as the good guys and the bad guys drive into the storage yard is a sign, "Welcome to the Punch." Yep, that's why it has that title.As this movie opens we see a cops and robbers chase, involving cop James McAvoy as Max Lewinsky and robber Mark Strong as Jacob Sternwood. Max fails badly and is shot in the knee by Jacob as the bandits run away. That happened a few years before the time of the main story, Jacob has disappeared while a mostly healed Max daily has to use a big syringe to draw fluid out of his damaged knee. Max has of course never gotten over that injury and Jacob's escape, he longs for the day when he can reverse that.So the story involves Jacob's son getting shot in a robbery, as the son dies from the wounds Jacob comes out of hiding near the Arctic Circle, he wants to find the one responsible for his son's death. And Max wants to even the score with Jacob.There are crosses and double crosses, there are unscrupulous politicians involved. The story is often hard to follow, not made easier by the mumbling at times, so much of the dialog is undecipherable. But I was mostly entertained. Not a bad movie per se, but also not a very good one.

Mischief810 This film is good but not great. But is not bad at all. Mark Strong is at his best and James McEvoy turns in a very good performance as well. You also almost immediately get the sense that Andrea Riseborough in the role of Sarah is a near perfect partner for Max (McEvoy).If you like a lot of shooting, high speed action and plot intrigue in an action thriller, you will have a lot of fun watching. You get a little of each in almost every scene.This is however a lower budget film. There's not a lot of CGI special effects. There are no blockbuster, high-dollar actors here to attract the kind of theater or disc demand to expect that this was going to be a box office smash. Aside from Strong, McEvoy and Riseborough, the acting is good but not great (see my lede). The plot also has a few tiny holes in it but they're not enough to ruin anything. It's just kind of a fun flick to sit down to after dinner and be entertained by a fast-paced action thriller with bullets flying, plot twists (tiny holes and all)and decent acting. If that's what you're looking for, you'll be pleased, and then surprised that this was over before you knew it.

Leofwine_draca WELCOME TO THE PUNCH is a monumental failure of a film, even worse than the recent SWEENEY remake directed by Nick Love. The blame for this film's failure can be laid at the door of writer/director Eran Creevy, a guy who displays a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to action direction and indeed writing a decent script.Essentially this is a crime film that sees the central characters investigating a flimsy, over-contrived back story that actually has nothing to do with any of them. This story - a predictable mystery with all of the non-surprising surprises you'd expect - is so trivial as to be barely worth writing down, and yet they manage to drag it out to feature length thanks to plenty of padding and unnecessarily filler material. The action, when it hits, is ludicrous, either inappropriate slow motion or random "pop up and shoot" bad guy moments, like in the laughable climax.The direction is equally poor, with Creevy making the bad decision of over-utilising the 'teal effect' for this film. This is where the entire film is tinted blue and orange, and it's such a cliché that I can't believe directors are still incorporating it into their movies. It makes for a muted, artificial look that dragged my enjoyment of the film down even further. It's a pity that a decent cast has been wasted in this non-starter of a film, with reliable performances from James McAvoy and Mark Strong as the leads, alongside David Morrissey and Peter Mullan; Jason Flemyng and Elyas Gabel provide cameo appearances but are equally wasted. And, indeed, the whole thing is a monumental waste of time.