Welcome to the Punch

I'm speaking slightly provocatively to start, but in my opinion, Welcome to The Punch is exactly what we need to see more of; a (comparatively) low budget, British based indie film that certainly pulls a decent proportion of its own weight in comparison to some of the Hollywood behemoths out there. At no point does the smaller budget (still hardly loose change at $8.5m) diminish the final product, which is a well thought through cops and robbers drama, packed with plenty of set piece action sequences and top quality casting, including James McAvoy at the helm.

After a particularly strongly worded argument, James McAvoy just waits for his car to apologise.

Perhaps the most overwhelming positive of the film is the extra thought and care the production team has put into the planning. The resulting precision and ambience in so many of the scenes is truly visually arresting (pun not intended), and a particular joy in its dramatic presentation of a very different side of London, with the Canary Wharf based opening sequence falling at the particularly memorable end of the spectrum. That said, while the extra care is highly evident in the big set piece shots, the slickness doesn't seem to extend quite into the link scenes. For some reason, they feel slightly looser, perhaps more akin to an extended TV show than a feature length thriller on the silver screen, and as a result, the film seems to lack the final punch to the gut (again, no pun intended) that should really be expected of the genre. With the added hardship of having to sit through a series of grotesque needle shots, Welcome to the Punch doesn't quite jump off the screen quite as it should, but does prove some undeniable promise for its critically acclaimed writer/director Eran Creevy.