The Boxer

Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot) is the title character, a former IRA man who's just been released after 14 years in prison and is determined to be violent only in the boxing ring henceforth; Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves) is the good woman he left behind, now married to another imprisoned terrorist. Will the pair find themselves irresistibly drawn toward one another again, after all these years? Will Danny Boy's past continue to haunt him? Will writer/director Jim Sheridan and co-screenwriter Terry George whack their audience upside the head repeatedly with the blunt instrument that is their central boxing metaphor? With actors as remarkable as Day-Lewis and Watson front and center, you're not exactly wasting your time, but neither one of them says or does anything in this movie that you haven't seen once a week or more for your entire life. Earnest, worthy, and just ever so faintly dull. Optional. (M. D'Angelo)