Director Jim Sheridan and his frequent writing collaborator Terry George craft this superb drama that examines the personal impact of Ireland's Troubles on one morally conflicted ex-convict. Most of the director's previous works are centered on characters who are their own worst enemies, blind in some significant way to how they have caused their own suffering. Here, the filmmakers have given stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Emily Watson a pair of worldly wise emotional veterans who are all too keenly aware of the flawed decision-making that led to their downfall. As the story's hero, Danny Flynn, Day-Lewis is one step from defeated, struggling to make a difference by molding the minds and hearts of his neighborhood's children before hateful rhetoric robs them of their futures, and of hope. Ultimately, The Boxer refuses to take the easy way out, becoming a heart-wrenching film about the inevitable failure of redemption in a system of violence. It's a stark, unforgiving, and spare drama, seemingly small on the surface, with things to say that linger, dark and awful, about humanity's tragic acceptance of unthinkable cycles of ruin.