Journeyman (2017)

Directed by: Paddy Considine | 92 minutes | drama, sports | Actors: Paddy Considine, Jodie Whittaker, Tony Pitts, Brendan Ingle, Paul Popplewell, Matt Insley, Lexie Duffy, Anthony Welsh, Francis Warren, Junior Witter, Simon Burgan, Greg Marriott

Where have we seen this before: a top boxer ends up on the edge of the abyss, but with the help of family, trainer and iron willpower, he gets back up to fight the fight of his life. Where have we seen this before? Among the 1,353 boxing films that preceded the British boxing drama ‘Journeyman’. A drama that follows the same pattern, but then again not at all.

In ‘Journeyman’ we meet Matty Burton, an elderly professional boxer who wants to burn one last time. In a match to preserve his world title, Burton gets hit after blow. A few days later, he suddenly doesn’t feel well. Headache. And then, oh cliche, Matty begins the most important fight of his life.

‘Journeyman’ resembles the well-known tale of the fallen and resurrected boxing hero, but here it lacks the heroism and the inevitable final fight. What Matty is fighting for is to live a normal life someday. In that sense, this drama is less related to all those other boxing films than to an anti-hero film like ‘Stronger’.

Actor and director Paddy Considine is acting and directing by the book, which is unfortunate in this case. ‘Journeyman’ had lent itself perfectly to the uncompromising approach of Considine’s directorial debut ‘Tyrranosaur’. ‘Journeyman’ is rather melancholy, tending towards sentimental. Sometimes a bit too syrupy and larmoyant, while the story sometimes loses its credibility.

That doesn’t make ‘Journeyman’ a bad movie. In addition to the excellent acting Considine, we see the pleasant appearance of Jodie Whittaker (‘Venus’, ‘Broadchurch’) as Matty’s wife Emma and Anthony Welsh (‘Black Mirror’) as a boxer with conscience Andre. The music is pleasant and appropriate, with Nick Cave and The Rain Parade as pleasant interludes.

The film also contains a message that can be heard in this day and age, about athletes who lose their personality (and sometimes their life) due to brain damage. This phenomenon mainly occurs in boxing and American Football, and fans of those sports can hardly ignore ‘Journeyman’. A drama that takes over all the ingredients of the ordinary boxing film and yet makes something completely different out of it. Pretty handsome actually.