The Boxer and the Bombshell

Written and directed by Jonathan Ogilvie, The Boxer and the Bombshell details the love triangle that ensues between a vicious boxing promoter (Hugo Weaving’s McHeath), his fetching girlfriend (Rose Byrne’s Iris) , and an up-and-coming pugilist (Matt Le Nevez’s Art). The situation is complicated by McHeath’s shady business dealings and his eventual efforts at fixing a pivotal boxing match, with the movie also boasting a number of periphery subplots that seem designed purely to pad out the overlong running time (eg two of McHeath’s goons fight over who gets to date Pia Miranda’s Daisy). Filmmaker Ogilvie initially offers up a slow-moving period drama that grows more and more tedious as it unfolds, with the novelty of the stellar performances and evocative ’20s atmosphere inevitably wearing off and forcing the viewer to search desperately for something (anything) of interest of latch onto. The increasingly stale atmosphere is exacerbated by the progressive emphasis on entirely uninteresting elements, as Ogilvie suffuses the film’s latter half with one aggressively pointless sequence after another – which handily ensures that The Boxer and the Bombshell fizzles out to an almost astonishing degree (ie the movie’s final half hour is nothing less than insufferable and interminable). The end result is a hopelessly misguided endeavor that wastes the talents of its admittedly impressive cast, and it’s ultimately impossible not to wonder just what Ogilvie originally set out to accomplish with this mess.

* out of ****