Not much of a boxing movie, so if your interest is in the sport you are sure to be disappointed. Character development is spotty, especially with Michael Caine's children. Caine's two henchmen come across well, and Michael Caine gives an impressive and believable performance. Martin Landau is mostly wasted in the background. What is intriguing is Caine's rapidly escalating paranoia regarding his ill advised decision to risk everything on his son's big fight. When things derail, Caine blames everyone but himself for the disaster. Unpleasant consequences follow for anyone he suspects of sabotaging his dream. Eventually the wheels come off and we learn if Caine's suspicions were imagined or correct. - MERK

Michael Caine might have tried to make a larger than life character to a successful degree but the whole storyline and Character's around him where not likable or interesting at all. It was all very Boring and somewhat predictable. Martin Landau , a favorite actor of mine had a nothing role.He was useless. Michael Caine got a bit irritating after a while and the film couldn't decide if it was a comedy or a serious thriller. Caine tries hard and good on him but i felt the direction and storyline let him down. Don't waste your time. It starts off well for the first 10 minutes and then that's about it. A film for Die Hard Caine Fans Only. Stay away from this One...

Michael Caine plays very much to type in this film about a tough East-End boxing promoter. The film, which is not, it quickly becomes apparent, a sports movie (the only fight scene comes early and is deliberately anticlimactic), but it seems to be struggling to decide what exactly it is. In part, it is the story of the death of a dream; but in part, it is a thriller and these two parts don't really get on. The thriller element is weakened by the fact that because we only see the story of Caine's character's decline, we have no way to judge what malign forces may be behind it; but in fact, there is plenty of material to explain his fall without requiring a sinister plot, and so the thriller obscures the portrait of a man. In fact, the resulting hybrid is so anaemic as a whole that it almost feels stylised, I don't think intentionally, but there's a flatness that gives the movie a feel of its own, albeit not a successful one. Yet there are some interesting ideas behind the plot; it's a shame they're so poorly worked out.

The emergence of Quentin Tarantino and his dubious influence on the likes of Guy Ritchie may have triggered the wave of appalling British gangster flicks we've been bequeathed over the past few years, but one of our most famous acting exports only serves to perpetuate the cycle by lending his considerable name to trash like this. I only wish he'd taken a moment to consider before choosing this project for the same reasons of personal gain he admits he often employs. It's not only stifling HIS talent, but possibly the promise of future originality from British films. Not one of this film's characters are likeable or even remotely realistic, and the dialogue consists of the usual empty threats and colourful language. Caine doesn't give the material any more effort than it deserves, either. If this was meant to be in the style of a tragic fall from grace a la "King Lear", it would've helped immensely had I cared about the ultimate fate of the principals, instead of just wishing that they'd get mired in the quicksand of life and dragged under almost immediately.