Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Jack Huston
Starring: Michael C. Pitt, Nicolette Robinson, John Magaro, Steve Buscemi, Ron Perlman, Joe
Pesci
"Boxing is for men, and is about men, and is men. A celebration of the
lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost,"
so wrote Joyce Carol Oates in her essay on boxing, 'On Boxing'. The
quote is typical JCO (the greatest living American writer/compulsive
poster on Twitter), pithily summarising the evident with such poetic
elan (the chiming repetition of "lost") that the phrase seems urgently
aphoristic and its implications acutely resonant. The assessment is
certainly evident in the opening of writer/director Jack Huston's
Day of the Fight, wherein Michael Pitt plays dishonoured ex-champ "Irish" Mike
Flannigan as we follow him through the events leading up to his first
bout in a decade. Masculine signifiers of monochrome (being a man is
serious, remember), early morning Brooklyn streets and a dilapidated
tenement in which Flannigan shadow boxes, jogs and skips, his lean
muscles hard silver against the peeling wallpaper and windy streets, are
rooted in the film's opening, with Oates' suggestion of obsoletion
confirmed by the film's undefined time period. Sixto Rodriguez is on the
soundtrack with lyrics, "You got something going/Something you call
unique/ But I've seen your self-pity showing....," to instruct us we're
settling in for a recognisable, and reassuring, tale of male redemption,
explicated by a flashback (a motif in the film which reinforces Mike's
punch-drunk confusion) telling us the protagonist has a deadly aneurysm:
if you hit him, it's murder.
The posturing put me agin the first round of
Day of the Fight, with its potential po-faced romanticising of what it means to be a
man. Yet, sure enough, while Day of the Fight doesn't
surprise with its fulfilment of an expected fairy tale narrative, it
does enthral, and I soon found myself deeply moved by its ruminations on
masculinity. Rope a dope, it won me over with its measured
sentimentality and emotive storytelling.
The film's success is largely due to Pitt's superlative performance, and
Huston's orchestration of his star (as a veteran actor filming his
directorial debut, Day of the Fight is essentially a
series of vignettes where Pitt goes up against a series of heavyweight
thespians). As he interacts with the people who made up his life, and it
becomes clear that the boxer had spent time inside for his part in a
drunk driving manslaughter, it is irresistible to draw parallels between
Mike Flanigan and Pitt himself. As he plaintively states to his best
friend, Mike wants to "be who I was, not who I am." A beautiful boy
would-be star (from, just like Mike, a resolutely working-class
background), Pitt worked with them all; Scorsese, Van Sant, Bertolucci,
Argento (jr.); and sought out challenging roles, yet naused it all up
with alleged on set diva behaviour (being sacked from one long running
role in a TV show is misfortune, to be sacked from two, etc) and actual
criminal activity. A quick internet recce of his name reveals the top
Google question, "What happened to the actor Michael Pitt?" ☹
In Day of the Fight, Pitt acts with a fierce determination which implies a similar
ultimation to his (eponymous?) character. His performance is
heart-breaking; Jake LaMotta via Balboa, with his beat-up face (the
actor labours under convincing prosthetics - or at least I hope it's
make up) and kindly nature. An abiding theme of the bloke-flick is
paternity, and Mike accordingly has two father figures; one in the
peerless Ron Perlman who plays his tough-love coach, and
Joe Pesci as his abusive pop now in hospital with late-stage
Alzheimer's (a one scene wonder, Pesci still manages to convey the
menace and sadness which typifies his roles despite his character's
catatonia). Distanced from his daughter, a tween whom he desperately
waves at from across the street as he turns up each day to see her
attend school, Mike has his own parental narrative, too.
Huston explores quotidian notions of masculine responsibility, but
again, it's the performances which make the material so impactful, and
warm. Affectionately represented, too, is the Brooklyn neighbourhood
that Mike lives in, where people pull together in an idiosyncratic
community and a butcher's is also a pawn-broker while a dry cleaner runs
a book. The tropes may be familiar but the presentation, aided by
Peter Simonite's photography, is authentic and inviting.
It would be tedious to expect a movie about male men to afford equal
narrative focus to women, but even so,
Day of the Fight follows a disappointing trajectory where
its female characters are foils to Mike.
Nicolette Robinson shines as his estranged partner, but her show
stopping moment singing in a nightclub is duly configured to support the
themes of Mike's redemptive arc. Similarly, the film's score is often
deployed in an unnecessarily soupy manner, offering an artificial
poignancy when the drama provided by the performances and Pitt's
incredible, saucer-eyed face is already abundant. However, the above are
minor deductions on this movie which safely wins on points. When it
happens, the brutality of the fight, with attendant medical
implications, is shot vividly: a contrast to the kindness and human
generosity which glows in every frame of this lovely film.
Day of the Fight is on the Icon
Film Channel from February 3rd and in UK cinemas from March 7th.
