"The devil you know is better than the devil you don't."

Rating: 10/10 (4 November 2017)

There aren't many fight movies I'd rate as high as a '10', and by fight movies I'm talking about boxing as the subject. "Rocky" and "Million Dollar Baby" are the only two I can think of off hand. But this movie transcends the genre and is so much more than a film about a pair of brothers reaching for the gold ring in the arena of mixed martial arts. There's a lot of human drama on display, and the three principals in the story pull off some of the most incredible performances one is likely to see in a film like this.
I was taken aback a bit by the number of other reviewers on this board who admitted to shedding a tear over parts of the story line. Some of the scenes affected me the same way and it's a little difficult to explain why, but the characters are so anguished and real that one can relate to them on some visceral level. I was especially heartened to see how the students of Sparta High School got behind their physics teacher, Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton) during the War at the Shore. That just showed a whole lot of loyalty and civic pride for the school to turn out the way they did.
The entire backdrop to the fight story of course is the anguished and disrupted home life of Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte), an alcoholic on the mend approaching a thousand days of sobriety, but with the inability to connect with the sons who abandoned him. I was a little surprised that the resolution to the story didn't involve Nolte's character engaging more purposefully with either Brendan or Tommy (Tom Hardy). It's left open ended, just as Tommy's status with the military is left open ended, though if you follow your instincts, the outcomes wouldn't necessarily be rewarding.
As for the fight scenes, I'd have to go on record stating that this movie has the best edited action in the ring I've ever seen. Though the pace is often relentless, none of it looks staged or phony, a credit to all the players involved and the principal photographer. Regarding the outcome of the final match, well before ring time one's brain scrambles trying to guess the outcome, as this is one film and one battle where you don't want either brother to lose, and you can't imagine the twist that will make the final verdict worthwhile. I won't spoil it here either, you'll just have to see and judge it for yourself.