Watched on Amazon Prime

For 14 years Danny (Daniel Day-Lewis) has been in prison. 14 years of imprisonment because he was responsible for the actions of another man. During this time silence has become his best friend and made him realise that in this almost existential silence of Northern Ireland's prison walls the voice itself is no longer welcome.

Jim Sheridan uses his taciturn leading man, who has spent nearly half his life behind bars, to illustrate the power of silent protest: The Northern Ireland conflict has taken hold not only of Belfast, but of the entire country. Denominational, social, economic, cultural and religious divides still seem insurmountable, as if the clocks had not turned a millimetre for the last 28 years.

So why plant more bombs? Why bomb more innocent people? Why further shatter a country broken to the core? "The Boxer" is the pacifist plea against a war that has always been pointless. So pointless that those involved do not even realise that their terrorist efforts are always directed against themselves.

So Danny comes back to this explosive melting pot he once called home. The fronts are still hardened, people are still starving to death on behalf of the IRA, the riots between Protestants and Catholics still demand new bloodbaths every day. And Danny? He gets together with his old coach Ike (Ken Stott) and gets the old boxing ring back into shape. A silent protest on a sportive level arises. It works, as far as it can work at all under these circumstances, to create a halfway acceptable everyday feeling. Until Danny meets his old love Magic (Emily Watson) again, which he left behind at the tender age of 16. It was she who managed to lighten Danny's grey sadness of the civil war a little bit. Now she is married, to his former best friend, who is now also in prison. And women whose husbands have gone to jail for the organization enjoy a sacred status here. Especially magic, whose father Joe (Brian Cox) brings with him a leadership position within the IRA. So an awakening of old passions is also inevitably connected to a past dominated by rigorous violence, which has robbed Danny of 14 years of his life.

From this, under the focused aegis of Jim Sheridan, a gentle, quiet love story emerges, reflecting the historical context in obviously accurate social and local colour, a year before the conflicts were to come to an official end in reality. The narrative about identity, conscience and solidarity, which at times unfolds into documentary form, negotiates over a running time of a good 110 minutes the misguided view of blind loyalty to principles and is not only worthy of being an attentive description of a nation plagued by suffering and misery.

"The Boxer", played in a naturally formidable manner, is a careful, sensitive, deeply authentic character study of two people who were made for each other and yet are not allowed to publicly admit to each other.