Stephen Graham plays Ben Levy a Jewish man who has married outside his faith but has two sons he wants to bring up as Jews. He had a turbulent childhood and saw boxing as his way of bettering himself. He is tied to the coattails of Shannon (Michael Smiley) who does the dirty work for the local Jewish community and promotes unlicensed bar knuckle fights as a sideline.
Ben is in money and emotional problems and gets offered the chance to make enough money to sort his life out. After he follows through on the deal things go from bad to very much worse in very short time.
Now the acting here is all fine with some very good performances – Graham is always excellent value for money as is Smiley. The problems come with the story and some of the scenes as far as believability is concerned. The final scene left me quite bewildered as to what they thought they were doing. I can't say what that was as it would be a massive plot spoiler. There are also scenes of greyhounds throughout and whilst I can guess at the meaning it seemed to be a bit tenuous to me. I did however enjoy this for the most part hence my rating but I am being 'glass half full' – if in doubt stream or rent as you will not get anything new on a second viewing.
Ben is in money and emotional problems and gets offered the chance to make enough money to sort his life out. After he follows through on the deal things go from bad to very much worse in very short time.
Now the acting here is all fine with some very good performances – Graham is always excellent value for money as is Smiley. The problems come with the story and some of the scenes as far as believability is concerned. The final scene left me quite bewildered as to what they thought they were doing. I can't say what that was as it would be a massive plot spoiler. There are also scenes of greyhounds throughout and whilst I can guess at the meaning it seemed to be a bit tenuous to me. I did however enjoy this for the most part hence my rating but I am being 'glass half full' – if in doubt stream or rent as you will not get anything new on a second viewing.