‘Donnybrook’ Film Review: Jamie Bell’s Miserabilist Boxing Drama Has No Uppercut

Director Tim Sutton shoots for scuzzy bleakness, but the end result is overpowering yet unfocused

Donnybrook
IFC

Tim Sutton’s “Donnybrook” is like getting wasted on expired beer at a bar with no liquor license, fighting three strangers in a parking lot, and passing out in a pool of vomit — which may or may not be your own — at the end of the night. On a Monday. It’s a brutal, depressing, filthy motion picture. But for whatever it’s worth, that’s the point.

“Donnybrook” stars Jamie Bell as Jarhead Earl, a war veteran with two kids, a drug-addicted wife, no money, and only one chance of improving his circumstances: The Donnybrook, an illegal, bare-knuckle brawl with a $100,000 grand prize.

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