There have been quite a few sports movies ever since the medium was created many years ago. Of those sports films, a lot of them have been boxing movies. It’s the kind of sport where writers and directors can create a dramatic story around. I’ve seen many of them myself. Every aspect of boxing has been displayed on the big screen over the years. All except the one displayed in The Cut. This is more about the struggle to get down to a certain Wright for a fight. It’s an interesting concept but not that interesting. 

The titular Boxer in the film is played by Orlando Bloom. There is an opening scene that has him fighting, and he gets a bad cut over his right eye, where the title comes from. This bothers him to the extent where he ends up losing the fight. Ten years later, he’s working with youths and cleaning up at a gym. When he sees the news of a  fighter dying, he gets the crazy idea that he can replace that fighter even though he’s older and retired from the fight game. Not to mention he’s 26 pounds overweight. Against the better judgment of his trainer and girlfriend Caitlin (Caitriona Balfe), he decides to try and go for it. It’s a lot harder than either of them, ever thought though.

The gist of this movie is the Bloom character trying to lose weight for the impending title fight he has in a little over a week from the time he decided to take the fight. This is for lack of a better word is the ugly side of the boxing game. As a fan of boxing myself, I’ve been on the periphery of the sport. Losing weight and gaining weight for a fight isn’t the prettiest thing. Especially when men or women have to vomit everything they eat or spit out what they drink. Or drinking just enough to get hydrated. Running and ice baths along with even diuretics to try to lose a pound here or there. With all that goes into this, I’m very surprised more fighters don’t die from this kind of regimen. 

The cast of the movie is rather small, with only a handful of main or supporting characters. Besides Bloom, his team has a couple of members who are a relatively small part of the story; they don’t have much of an impact except for the Balfe character. Her romantic connection to the Bloom character is a key to how she reacts to everything that is going on around them. John Turturro is a character who comes into the story halfway through and makes a huge impact on the story. His character is brought in to help the Bloom character get down to the weight he needs to be at so he can make the fight. He’s pretty intense, to be honest. He is part of why this film gets to be such an ugly story. A Don King like promoter is played by Gary Beadle. He’s pretty cool to watch and operate in this role. He definitely channels the famous fight promoter.

There is one thing in this film that gives the main character some relatability. The director Sean Ellis decides to use flashbacks to the main character’s past. These give context to who he is and the pain he’s suffering on the inside. As a child growing up in Northern Ireland, it wasn’t an easy time for him or his mother. She had to do things she wasn’t proud of to help give her son food and pay her bills. She even saved him from the occasional school yard fight. She was everything to this man when he was a boy. I could relate to these mother scenes to some extent. My mom did a lot of stuff to help put food on the table and pay the bills for myself and my brothers and sister. These were the best scenes in the film for my money.

Orlando Bloom is a solid actor. He obviously broke out with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy in the early 2000s as Legolas the elfin Archer. He was fantastic as this character in these movies. Ever since he’s done a bit of everything in his career. His role in this film isn’t one of his best, though. He just comes across as a lost and defeated man. Not because he lost a big fight but in general. The training and losing weight for this new fight seem a bit anticlimactic to me. All the lead up to the end of the movie was a bit depressing and not very fun to watch. I’m curious why anybody would want to depict such an ugly side of the sport of boxing as this in a film. It wasn’t very enjoyable to watch despite the realistic nature of the scenario. Bloom was caught up in a bad idea to me.

The Cut is a boxing film that has an interesting premise that doesn’t measure up. The flashbacks are fascinating and work well to show the struggles of the lead character. Other than this, the rest of the movie isn’t very good. The trying and trying to lose weight segments of the movie are just ugly and pretty depressing to me. Bloom is okay as this character, the film as a whole, fails him and the rest of the cast. Turturro is a bit over the top as this trainer who’ll do anything to get the results he wants. It’s not a very pretty character. The end result is that this is an ugly side of boxing that translates to a not very good movie either. This is definitely not the boxing movie to watch for inspiration or a good heartfelt story.

2 stars

Dan Skip Allen