As the poster says “Caine’s back on top form, packing his biggest punch since ‘Get Carter'”

Well this might not be as great as Get Carter, but it is pretty good.  The poster shows Michael Caine staring alongside Martin Landau, but Landau doesn’t play that big a role in this film.  Caine is the one and only star you need to know about in this film.

This film is directed by John Irvin who has done a hodge-podge of action, neo noir, and war movies through his career with some great stuff as well as some I’d rather forget.  Scott Cherry wrote the screenplay, this his first movie, but he has extensive television work.

This film is about Billy ‘Shiner’ Simpson who is a gangster and shady boxing promoter.  He has a contender under his management, his own son, and has gotten him a big title fight. He has everything he owns on the line, his son needs to win and Shiner is looking pretty, if he loses, Shiner loses everything!  Shiner’s son loses….to easily.  Shiner thinks the fix is in, he confronts his son…and the next thing you know this son is shot!  Shiner continues to solve who got to his son? who shot his son?  Why would somebody do this to him?  Besides Caine’s usual great performance we have, Landau playing the American promoter who manages the title holder. Frank Harper as Stoney and Andy Serkis as Mel, both thugs in Shiner’s employ.

This neo noir again has our favorite noir sport, boxing!  We have some police detectives but they pretty much stay out of the picture.  We got a crooked lawyer, some other shady boxing promoters, lots of thugs and a great English back drop.

This film is a good picture, worth watching for any Caine fans out there, but might not be to everyone’s liking.  I gave it a 7 out of 10, IMDb is at a 6 out of 10.  Seems about far for this film.