There are a lot of casualties in this stylish, unoriginal thriller, but James McAvoy’s knee was the only one that moved me. His detective character gets shot there during the opening chase sequence, in which the heisting baddies escape through London on motorcycles, and then he proceeds to blow it out every subsequent time he tries to catch the ringleader (Mark Strong). Can someone give this guy a decent brace? Or a break?
Tipping its hat to everything from corrupt officials in “State of Play” to the blue lighting of “Heat,” “Welcome to the Punch” duly follows the travails of McAvoy’s burnt-out Max, who’s trying to solve a big-picture crime ring involving the son of the knee shooter, with the help of his partner (Andrea Riseborough, doing what she can).
One promising line — “I can shave [this goatee], but you’ll still look like a bag of smashed crabs” — had me hoping for a witty, winking shoot’em-up a la Martin McDonagh or Guy Ritchie, but no: Director Eran Creevy (“Shifty”) just delivers one straight-faced gunfight after another, signifying nothing.