Irish boxing thriller that punches above its weight available to watch this week

Stephen Porzio

This homegrown indie sports flick has a real chance of finding an audience.

There’s an Irish indie movie heading into mutliplexes this weekend that has the potential to be a real homegrown, breakthrough hit.

That film is titled Swing Bout and is a crime thriller that takes place entirely backstage at a major boxing event.

Our main character is Toni (Ciara Berkeley), a young English boxer with a dark past who dreams of being a world champion. She finds herself in Ireland with the chance to box in front of a huge TV audience on a major fight card.

There’s one big problem though. On the evening of the fight, she is told by her shady coach (Sinead O’Riordan) and her even more shady promoters (a pair of brothers played by Ben Condron and Frank Prendergast) to throw the match.

As tensions escalate behind the scenes – on account of rivalries between fighters, medical emergences and a potential murder inquiry – Toni wrestles with what decision to make.

Written and directed by Maurice O’Carroll (known in the Irish independent film scene for his movie Dead Along the Way and web series Sucking Diesel), Swing Bout is quite rough around the edges in a way that highlights its humble origins.

The narration by an unseen John Connors – playing a motivational speaker that Toni listens to in the run-up to her fight – falls a bit flat, feeling like a strained effort to give a sense of grandeur to a movie that doesn’t really need it. After all, its claustrophobic, pressure cooker setting is effective enough already.

There’s also one or two subplots that don’t amount to much, with rising star Baz Black’s aging boxer character getting particularly short shrift.

Plus, even with one of the tag lines for the film reading: “Why show you the boxing when they’re killing each other back stage?” and the way O’Carroll does somewhat satisfy audiences’ desire to see some fighting in the climax, the movie’s lack of action inside the ring does feel anticlimactic.

And yet, even with these issues – which mostly come down to budget – Swing Bout punches above its weight in terms of craft.

There’s some excellent performances, particularly from Prendergast – as a reptilian promoter whose life of screwing people over and pushing his luck is catching up with him over the course of one fateful night.

Also worth highlighting is Megan Haly’s powerfully emotional turn as Mary Malicious, Toni’s only friend and a fellow boxer who is left badly injured after a fight.

In terms of the filmmaking, Carroll does terrific work for the most part keeping the stress levels high, staging several breathless scenes where two characters have a confrontational discussion while walking and talking or where more gather altogether in one space and scream over each other as the pressure of the situation they find themselves in comes to a head.

There’s also a brilliantly gripping scene – all rendered in a long take – where we see Mary filmed from the back of her head post-fight as she gets checked by medical personnel, with Carroll hiding for an agonising amount of time the extent of the young fighter’s injuries.

It’s in Swing Bout’s sense of escalating tension where it makes the best case for it deserving a cinema release, despite its flaws. Also, given its exciting premise – one that should appeal to movie lovers, as well as sports fans – we wouldn’t be surprised if this performs better at the box-office than might be expected.