That was an excellent one.

Just perfect...

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Writer & director Eran Creevy's "Welcome to the Punch" qualifies as an exciting, first-rate British crime thriller with James McAvoy, Mark Strong, and David Morrissey. McAvoy stars as a zealous London Detective Max Lewinsky who tangles with a master criminal Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong) who eludes him after a skillfully planned robbery involving Strong's gang. The four, masked thieves escape with their ill-gotten gains astride motorcycles with our tenacious hero in hot pursuit in his car. All of this occurs during the opening scene with McAvoy careening around London after the felons. At the same time, Max's superiors inform him that he must stand down. The resourceful McAvoy manages to isolate his nemesis from the rest of the gang. Meantime, he squares off against the villain who blows a hole in his right knee cap and leaves him behind. Detective (James McAvoy of "Wanted") has an operation on his knee that leaves it looking like a crocodile's back. He must draw fluid from his injured knee cap at intervals. The problem with Max's encounter with Sternwood is he confronted Sternwood without a firearm in his possession and against direct orders from the department. Ultimately, Max is left partially crippled with an obsessive desire to capture Sternwood, but at the same time his superiors think that he may have lost his edge. Fortunately, Max gets his opportunity three years later to prove himself again when Sternwood's son Ruan (Elyes Gabel of "Interstellar") is shot in the stomach and winds up in London. When the authorities arrest Ruan at the airport, he has just gotten off the phone with his notorious father in Iceland. Predictably, Jacob doesn't intend to let his son suffer any more than necessary, so he recruits an old colleague, Roy Edwards (Peter Mullen of "Shallow Grave") to help him after he returns to London to get his son. Meantime, Max hopes that Jacob will put himself at risk, re-enter England, and try to save Ruan. Predictably, Jacob doesn't disappoint Max, but along the way, Max discovers that the police force teems with corruption, specifically among his superiors, his immediate boss, bespectacled Nathan Bartnick (Daniel Mays) and worse of all top-cop Thomas Geiger (David Morrissey) who suspects Bartnick is dirty. Everybody except for his new partner, Sarah (Andrea Riseborough of "Oblivion"), is firmly on his side, and she is no slouch, until she meets her match in a thorough-going bastard, Dean Warns (Johnny Harris of "Atonement"), who describes himself at one point as "a good soldier, because of selfless commitment." "Welcome to the Punch" is a gritty, realistic, but outlandish cops and robbers thriller. Creevy doesn't waste a solitary second in this thriller, and nobody delivers a bad performance. Moreover, Creevy has created a number of interesting characters, such as Sarah, who loves to write clues on her hand. Later, these words help our hero avenge her death.

James McAvoy and Mark Strong plays the lead role in this Eran Creevy's Brit Action Flick. Synopsis 3 years ago,Max Lewinsky was severely injured during a combat with the notorious criminal James Sternwood and was waiting for a chance to take on James.. Now James has returned to find his son's killer who got killed in a gun fight. Max in pursuit of James and then teams up with him to find the real culprits I liked the movie coz of its fast paced narration and good action moments. The story's good but something was missing whole total in it. The lead actors were good in their roles. Bgm and camera-work was fine but not the best. You can try this if you are looking for a time pass action thriller. My rating 6.8 on 10

I put this on specifically because it starred James McAvoy, who up until now has reliably turned up in unique and daring films. After viewing this I am fearful that the interesting part of his career might be waning, because this production very much seems like a paycheck film. Due to the extremely competent acting and cinematography, the film is quite watchable, but the essential story has been done a zillion times before. None of the material is original at all. It's really a case of, "Nothing to see here folks, just move along"; however, I don't completely feel that I totally wasted my time, because, while totally conventional and derivative, it is very slickly produced. Watching this still qualifies as a minor mistake when I consider that there are only so many hours in a day and certainly so many better films out there. From now on, like Samuel Jackson, I'm afraid McAvoy being on the bill might no longer be a useful shortcut for choosing a film. I'm not writing him off just yet, but this particular role was no acting risk and can't be viewed as a good omen. So, in short, pure cinematic junk food. Reasonably tasty cinematic junk food, but forgettable and empty nevertheless.

When you look back in film history, there have been numerous great British made thrillers and gangster movies. This missed the boat and will never catch it.What we have is a production with a tick list that has a mark against some notable boxes: good actors, rich settings, interesting lighting, fine directing etc. They forgot though about the screenplay which really is poor. Some clichés, a lot of nonsense and nothing big or clever.James McAvoy really needs to speak to his voice trainer, his accent was appalling. A fine actor reduced to looking out of place here.Apart from one shoot-out in the last quarter, I really don't have anything much good to say of the action which was mostly dull. Some say it is supposedly influenced by Hong Kong gangster work, this doesn't seem to pay off or understand the genre. I've watched lots of those movies, this doesn't cut the mustard.There's no point saying much more about this, just put it to the side and move on. Very disappointing.