Two Fists, One Heart

Rating:

* * *

Verdict:

Boxing is the setting, not the subject, of a polished Australian father-son drama

.

Boxing was made for the movies (or perhaps it's the other way round). Either way, the slo-mo sweat spray or the blurred flurry of padded fists create an on-screen verisimilitude that can disguise an actor's average skill as a pugilist. Anyone can be taught to throw a credible punch after all, but Forest Whitaker's woeful attempt at bowling in

The Crying Game

still makes this cricket-lover cringe.

There's not a lot of boxing in this Australian drama, although what there is is pretty violent. The sport is the setting for the story of Anthony Argo (Amalm), a young man escaping the lifelong domination of his obsessive Sicilian-born father, Joe (Fantastichini).

The older man, a one-time champion, wants his son to follow in his footsteps and demands total devotion; the youngster has his head turned and his eyes opened when he meets Kate (Marais), a pretty young woman he rescues from a roughing up, and her gay brother Tom (Minchin, whose musical comedy act was a notable presence at AK08). The tension turns Oedipal when the spiteful Joe takes under his wing another trainee, the borderline psychopath Nico (one-time boxer Fazio, who wrote the screenplay).

It's a polished package this, with some snappy, if occasionally contrived, dialogue, high production values and solid performances. It suffers from a lack of focus early on - we need to identify with Anthony's struggle but for the first half hour he's really a violent little jerk dealing out rough justice to thugs who never seem to want to get even.

Some scenes are over-directed too, bombarding us with visual ideas as the story strays too far from its spine.

But it gives us a strong sense of its setting - Perth, a rare location for an Aussie film - and evokes both the conflict between Greeks and Italians and the violence visited on ethnic cuisine by those leagues clubs. It's a small and plausible story, with a climax that gives

Rocky

a run for its money.

Peter Calder

Cast:

Daniel Embalm, Ennio Fantastichini, Jessica Marais, Rai Fazio, Costas Kilias, Paul Pantano, Tim Minchin

Director:

Shawn Seet

Running time:

105 mins

Rating:

M (contains violence, sexual references and offensive language) In English and Italian with English subtitles