Day of the Fight

Day of the Fight is an unabashed genre picture that manages to be both the kind of movie they supposedly don’t make like they used to, and also something bracingly fresh. It’s anchored by the lead actor, Michael C. Pitt, here ferocious and heart-stabbingly vulnerable in equal proportion.

Just as Flannigan gives it his all, on the off-chance he may never have this opportunity again, so does Pitt. And that's what makes "Day of the Fight" a sight to see.

Day of the Fight does not break the mold of the boxing movie, but it does not set out to do so. An homage to a kind of cinema that isn’t made much anymore, it signals a director who understands that a filmmaker does not need a huge budget or a complicated story to make a good film.

It leans too heavily into ham-fisted cliché but Jack Huston’s debut gets by on a striking look and a clutch of strong performances led by an excellent Michael C. Pitt.

This soft-jab tragedy never finds the depth of expression to become a truly layered tale about choices, regrets and what we do with the rounds we have left.

The light and shade here is all in Peter Simonite’s splendid, inky-shadowed monochrome lensing; Huston’s visual sense outweighs his screenwriting.

Pitt’s all-in performance and an impressive supporting cast supply enough roughhouse wit and Brooklyn grit to hold up scenes that might have otherwise gone down for the count.