2024 Entry #39 04-12-24 “Punch” is a New Zealand gay sports drama film written and directed by Welby Ings (“Sparrow”, “Boy”). The story follows the central character Jim (Jordan Oosterhof), a highschool student and aspiring boxer whose former professional boxing father Stan (Tim Roth) is now an alcoholic whose health is fading. Jim befriends Whetu (Conan Hayes), an openly gay Maori boy who is an aspiring singer. The two face multiple hardships, some of them quite shocking, before a not completely satisfying ending.
I enjoyed most of this film. Though it was clearly a drama, I was a bit surprised by some of the serious events which were depicted, but it managed to keep a mostly positive outlook… which, I’m sorry to say, seems to have hurt the ending of the film, which seems rushed and nonsensical. I suppose this ending could have worked if the film took the time to set it up but there are a dozen details that are just wrong. For example, it appears that Jim is editing a video for Whetu during this finale (which he suggested earlier in the film was something he’d love to do for Whetu), but it’s made up of footage in which Whetu was alone – and SPOILER – just before the character was viciously gang raped. So tacking that on to a “happy ending” felt completely tone deaf. Perhaps they meant to imply that they recreated that time together for some kind of healing through Whetu’s art, but that doesn’t seem to make sense either, as Whetu leaves town to become a singer without saying goodbye to Jim – and openly kisses another guy during the concert at the end, which is played over Jim editing the video. It sucks, because as dark as the subject matter gets at times, this movie gets more right than it does wrong…so seeing it fall apart at the end like this is a bit frustrating. Any example I could have listed here would have been an unfortunate misstep if it were the only one, but combined they topple the film which had been running aggressively forward to the promised finish line just a half hour before.