Unfinished Storyline - made up for with amazing acting and intense moments.

Rating: 9/10 (26 October 2012)

I absolutely loved this film, but at the same time it was nowhere near perfect. To start with I'll talk about the things that really annoyed me about this film, and then I will talk about how it managed to redeem itself.
To start with the ending is terrible, the film is missing about fifteen to twenty minutes of actually finishing the story lines, as you could see what was going to happen form the beginning Tommy was ultimately going to loose to Brendan, and after they had their final fight the film would end, and thats exactly what happened. It was a little disappointing to see this happened as it did not answer the questions as to what will happen to Tommy after the fight as he was about to be imprisoned for desertion, it also did not end the story line of why Tommy was in the tournament to start with, which was to raise money for his comrade who died in action, this was only mentioned once or twice and was never fully explained. I was expecting Brenda to offer half the money at the end of the fight to stop but instead he had to beat him - way to kick a man while he was down.
It may have also just been me but I did wonder where the father had gone, which kept being mentioned but then he just turned up again, and it didn't really show why he had left, and so I didn't really get this part of the film. Finally the most annoying part of the film is that in my eyes Tommy should have won, he was the better fighter and Brenda won most of his fights through 'flukes' which was irritating. Like I said earlier Brenda should have offered him half the money to stop fighting as Tommy had already taken his anger out on him and so had nothing to loose. Instead the guy who had been really average throughout the film won and just carried Tommy away, which only really ended the family drama part of the story.
However although this film's ending really annoyed me, what it did make up for was great acting Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy were absolutely amazing as their given roles, and anything they did seemed to be faultless. These two kind of stole the show, as they really got into their roles as fighters and it was really easy to see them as fighters, so little was left to the imagination. The fighting scenes also did not cut to much so you got to see some amazing fighting moves which was nice to see when most modern films don't really put them in, so this was another amazing factor.
Taking that all into account the main positive for me was when 'About Today - The Nationals' was played, it fit in so well to the film and really became quite emotional as these two brothers fought in their final round against each other. This is one of the few movies where I generally felt completely swept up in the moment and it really was quite sad, to see a man having travelled so far and get shot down at the final - However this does go along with my belief that Tommy Should have won, or they should have drew.
None the less I thoroughly enjoyed this film , and unfinished film but the journey was exceptional and I would be glad to rate this film as a must see for just about anyone.