Brawler   Starring: Wes Chatham and Devon Sawa Koch Media RRP: £15.99 KME029.UK.DR Certificate: 15 Available 18 March 2013

Accused of a murder he didn't commit, Dillon is sent to prison for ten years. On his release he tries to go straight only to be targeted by the police. His brother, Jake, has spent the last ten years getting into trouble and Dillon discovers that his brother owes a lot of money - enough to get killed for. When the local gangster, Ace, kidnaps Jake, for the money he owes, Dillon makes a deal to win three fights at a local club to pay back his debt, but Dillon isn’t just fighting for his brother’s life, he is also fighting a corrupt system that wants to see him loose...

Brawler (2011 - 1 hr, 29 min, 51 sec) is a story of redemption directed by Jason Connery and produced by Joel Silver, the film stars Wes Chatham (Dillon) and Devon Sawa (Jake).

Prison has changed Dillon. When we first meet him he, along with a couple of friends, are trying to scam some beer with a fake ID. After the robbery, and having been stabbed up in prison, Dillon still appears to be the all American hero he used to be before his sentence. However, during his first fight Dillon wins by nearly beating his opponent to death.

This does bring him to the attention of L. A. Jim (Neal McDonough) who offers to train him, but it also brings him to the further attention of the games organisers who wants to make money from him, but only if he loses. All this and the partner of the cop he didn’t kill ten years ago is not only riding him hard, but is also involved in the fight scene.

Things take a decidedly downward spiral when Dillon unexpectedly wins a fight he was supposed to loose, even though he was heavily drugged. Cue the bad cop again who lost two hundred thousand dollars by betting against him.

Well it’s not going to take a brain surgeon to work out where the film's plot will take Dillon. At heart the character is a good man in a bad world and while the film takes few risks it is none-the-less competently made. The fight scenes are well choreographed and the actors are able to imbue their characters with real emotion. It’s a little trite, but you actually start to care what happens to Dillon.

The film suffers from a number of plot holes. Why did Dillon believe that if the gangsters could make thirty thousand out of him they would just let him walk away? How does Dillon not know what a mobile phone is or how to text, given that mobile phones in prison is a real problem? And how did Dillon make it through a ten year stretch in prison, how did he come out so criminally naive?

In the end it’s a good, if not great, film and follows the fighter finding redemption started by the Rocky films. The film displays enough heart that I wouldn’t have turned over if it had turned up on television.

The DVD has only a single extra, the trailer (1 min, 49 sec).

6

Charles Packer