Taglines: Love is always worth fighting for.
The Boxer movie storyline. Nineteen-year-old Danny Flynn is imprisoned for his involvement with the IRA in Belfast. He leaves behind his family and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Maggie Hamill. Fourteen years later, Danny is released from prison and returns to his old working class neighborhood to resume his life as a boxer, fighting and opening a boxing club training aspiring boxers. Maggie has since married Danny’s best friend, who is also imprisoned for his IRA activities.
Although he has not denounced the IRA or denigrated his I.R.A. colleagues, Danny has decided to live a life free of political violence. His boxing club is nonsectarian, open to both Catholics and Protestants. This move irks some of his old I.R.A. colleagues since they feel working with the Protestants will not resolve their David versus Goliath struggle. Danny’s old I.R.A. colleagues, especially their unofficial leader Harry, resort to traditional tactics of violence to stop Danny.
Maggie’s father, Joe, also an IRA activist, does not condone the violence against Danny as he is working through peaceful means to free IRA prisoners (including Maggie’s husband), but also does not want Maggie to resume her past relationship with Danny, a man who he sees as having no future. Amidst this turmoil, Danny and Maggie dream of a life together, also taking into account Maggie’s wedded status and the feelings of her teen-aged son, Liam.
The Boxer is a 1997 sports-drama film by Irish director Jim Sheridan. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Emily Watson, the film centers on the life of a boxer and former Provisional IRA volunteer Danny Flynn, played by Day-Lewis, who is trying to “go straight” after his release from prison. The film is the third collaboration between Sheridan and Day-Lewis, and portrays the increase of splinter groups within the IRA.
The Boxer was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards in the Picture, Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Director (Jim Sheridan) categories. It also competed for the Golden Bear at 48th Berlin International Film Festival in 1998.
The Boxer (1998)
Directed by: Jim Sheridan
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, Brian Cox, Ken Stott, Gerard McSorley, Kenneth Cranham, Lorraine Pilkington, Maria McDermottroe, Kate Perry, Catherine Dunne
Screenplay by: Terry George, Jim Sheridan
Production Design by: Brian Morris
Cinematography by: Chris Menges
Film Editing by: Clive Barrett, Gerry Hambling
Costume Design by: Joan Bergin
Art Direction by: Fiona Daly, Richard Earl
Music by: Gavin Friday, Maurice Seezer
KHAA Daüirg: R for language and some violence.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: January 9, 1998
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