Producers: Mark Lane, Leonora Darby, James Harris, Orlando Bloom, Adam Karasick, Brett Saxon and Thomas Fanning   Director: Sean Ellis   Screenplay: Justin Bull   Cast: Orlando Bloom, Caitríona Balfe, John Turturro, Gary Beadle, Claire Dunne, Ed Kear, Adonis James Anthony and Mohammed Mansaray Distributor: Republic Pictures

Grade: C+

A movie about a boxer that’s less about the so-called sweet science than about personal obsession, “The Cut” spotlights a committed performance by Orlando Bloom as an over-the-hill pugilist (the fact that he’s simply called The Boxer indicates that he’s intended as an iconic figure) who’s offered an unbelievable chance at career redemption.  Ten years earlier he’d lost a championship bout when he got distracted at point of victory and suffered a match-ending gash above his eye.  Now, along with his partner Caitlin (Caitríona Balfe), he operates a small gym, idolized by local kids but spurned by young boxers; he’s beaten down and psychologically bruised, not least by memories of his childhood in Dublin during the Troubles, when as a undersized kid he was badly bullied and watched his addict mother (Claire Dunne) serve the lust of British soldiers—which proved unacceptable to the unforgiving IRA.

One day he’s visited by a slick, motor-mouthed fight promoter named Donny (Gary Beadle) with an unexpected proposition: a Super Welterweight title shot in Vegas.  A space has opened up because one of the fighters scheduled for the much-ballyhooed championship bout has suddenly died, and Donny needs a replacement for him.  The problem is that the fight is only a week off, and The Boxer is more than thirty pounds above the weight limit.  As his longtime manager Caitlin warns him, losing so much weight in so short a time is impossible, but he insists on trying anyway; this is his chance at redemption.  Donny, meanwhile, is shoveling a big steak down his gullet as they dicker; cinematographer Sean Ellis’ camera lingers on the glistening hunks of meat he spears off the plate.

But on the diet and workout regimen that Caitlin prepares for him The Boxer is not losing the poundage he needs to, so he turns to Boz (John Turturro), an ultra-tough trainer whose methods are unsanctioned and unrelenting.  Caitlin is forced to step aside and watch from the sidelines as The Boxer submits to Boz’s brutal demands.  Another of Boz’s trainees, Lupe (Mohammed Mansaray), suffers alongside him, with both driven to the point of collapse by the pills, the hothouse atmosphere and the exercises; The Boxer begins to hallucinate, and his faithful aides Paolo (Adonis James Anthony) and Manny (Ed Kear) are shunted aside as Boz’s influence reigns supreme.  At one point The Boxer is even forced to sweat off some weight by digging what amounts to a grave.  All told, this portion of the film is genuinely harrowing, with more than a hint of body horror in the mix.

And yet when the dreaded weigh-in arrives and The Boxer remains a few ounces over the limit, a furious Boz can’t persuade officials to allow for a little leeway or suggest any emergency strategy.  That’s when The Boxer takes matters into his own hands, quite literally, to make a sacrifice that will allow him to take to the ring and apparently lead to his victory, though the unremittingly downbeat film doesn’t even give the viewer the satisfaction of seeing the fight, being content to offer a scene showing its bleakly cynical aftermath.  (One might also question, from a practical perspective, whether the action The Boxer takes would have the intended effect.)

Apart from the periodic flashbacks to The Boxer’s boyhood in Ireland (where, according to glimpses of newspaper articles he keeps tacked to the gym wall he came to be celebrated as “The Wolf of Dublin”), writer Justin Bull and director-cinematographer Sean Ellis keep the focus on his present-day struggle, set in gritty Las Vegas locales (the production design is by Matthew Button) and shot in deliberately oppressive close-in visuals; one can almost smell the stench.  The result is almost as purgatorial for viewers as the ordeal is for The Boxer, and editor Mátyás Fekete lets the scenes of suffering in Vegas play out with painful languidness, adding some energy exclusively to the frantic Dublin flashbacks.  The brooding score by Lorne Balfe and Stuart Michael Thomas offers no comfort from the sense of doom.

But even if one finds the narrative unpleasant (as well as borderline preposterous—The Boxer spends the week totally centered on losing weight, despite the fact that he’s been out of the ring for a full decade and has obviously let himself go physically), you have to be impressed that Bloom has tackled his role with such determination.  With only a little prosthetic help, he does resemble a broken-down has-been, and he convincingly endures the often humiliating demands Boz imposes on The Boxer.  Turturro, meanwhile, proves an absolute monster as Boz, a snarling, ranting guy single-mindedly concentrating on whipping his boxers into shape and sloughing off the slightest hint of empathy for his trainees, looking on them, as he says, simply as poker chips in the fight game.

Balfe is largely limited to expressions of pained concern as Caitlin, but both Beadle and Mansaray add intensity to their scenes, although it can be argued that they chew the scenery even more ferociously than Turturro—which is saying a lot. More character study than boxing movie, “The Boxer” represents a striking change of pace for Bloom, but it’s more impressive as an acting exercise than as a riveting drama.

Producers: Doris Pfardrescher, Yusuke Suzuki and Hiroyuki Takase    Director: Kensuke Sonomura   Screenplay: Yugo Sakamoto    Cast: Akari Takaishi, Masanori Mimoto, Mario Kuroba, Hidenobu Abera, Ayaka Higashino, Hiroto Honda, Ryu Ichinose, Sora Inoye, Naohiro Kawamoto, Kenta Kawasaki and Satoshi Kibe   Distributor: Well Go USA Entertainment

Grade: C+

Kensuke Sonomura and Yugo Sakamoto, the team responsible for the “Baby Assassins” franchise, create another comic action movie, this time with a supernatural hook. “Ghost Killer” starts with a prologue in which Kudo (Masanori Mimoto), an aging hit-man who’s part of a cabal of assassins, kills his target after a blistering fight but is then shot dead by an unseen gunman.  The bullet casing from the fatal shot is kicked about until it’s picked up by Fumika (Akari Takaishi), a mousy college student.  She’s possessed by Kudo’s ghost, who’s out for revenge. 

There follows a prolonged, basically slapstick exposition in which the solemn Kudo and a hysterical Fumika figure out the “rules” of possession: she sees him while others cannot, and when she touches his hand he takes her body over and can use it to devastate opponents.  That comes in handy when her pal Maho (Ayaka Higashino) is threatened by her brutal boyfriend, and Fumika/Kudo intervenes.  The feminist impulse also comes into play when “they” confront a trio of low-lifes—a giggling influencer Fumika has wanted to interview, his friend and a bartender—in a local dive.

But the emphasis is on the search for Kudo’s killer, which naturally brings emotional bonding between ghost and host, with Kudo coming increasingly to question his dark vision of life and to grow more protective of Fumika, while she in turn becomes more understanding and assertive.

Their quest leads inevitably to the dark organization of assassins to which Kudo belonged, now led by the manic son of its late long-time leader.  After some difficulties Fumika/Kudo will be joined in their mission by Kagehara (Mario Kuroba), a laconic, impassive young hit-man who’d been mentored by Kudo.  A final confrontation culminates in a long, brutal martial-arts battle between Fumika/Kudo and Katsura (Naohiro Kawamoto), who matches the ghost move for move.

Sonomura stages the fight sequences expertly, using the relatively small spaces in which some are set particularly well, and he has fun switching between Takaishi and Mimoto as they go on.  He and his actors are less successful with the comedy, which they pitch at a very high level that winds up feeling juvenile.  Of course, that’s pretty much a function of the possession premise, which is fundamentally silly, especially as it’s depicted to start the plot running, the bullet casing being kicked about randomly by passersby before Fumika picks it up quizzically. 

“Ghost Killer” is hardly a movie with wide appeal, but devotees of Japanese action comedy will probably enjoy it–especially the fight sequences–provided they can swallow the supernatural goofiness.