Tribeca Review: Blue Blood

It’s a wonder no one has a made a documentary about the Oxford Boxing Club before: The contrast between the brutality of the pursuit and the intellectual reputation of the school is an obvious hook, and the story of young men in search of greatness is a theme that is guaranteed to hook an audience. With so much handed to him, however, the task of the filmmaker who takes on the subject is in some ways even more daunting -- how to take the film beyond the obvious? How to surpass our exceptions, and show us more than the children of privilege, taking a brief, protected walk on the wild side? In Blue Blood, director Stevan Riley confronts these challenges head-on and, in many ways, succeeds admirably. Focused on just a small handful of boxers, his film is wildly engaging and cleverly constructed, faltering only, oddly enough, during the climactic annual match against Cambridge.

The keys to Riley’s film are his athletes, and he chooses them wonderfully. One wonders how many students he filmed before finding five as diverse as the bunch he settled on, but the process was clearly worth all the time and film it took. From Kavanagh, a first-year studying philosophy who looks to weigh all of 80 pounds, to Justin, a gung-ho American Air Force Academy graduate in pursuit of a PhD in astrophysics, Blue Blood’s boxers come from far-flung corners of society. Though Charlie comes from the privileged background with which Oxford is stereotypically associated, Fred grew up poor with a single mother, and has a real fear of not fitting in in his new environment. The only thing the five have in common is a desperate desire to be “a blue”  -- to fight a varsity bout for the University.

The job of turning 40-plus completely inexperienced students into boxers -- nine are ultimately chosen for the varsity fights -- falls to Des, a full-time builder who comes to the gym after his day job is over. A veteran of nearly 200 matches in his boxing days, Des is perhaps the most surprising and appealing figure in the film. Instead of drilling his students in technique (there is some of that but, in only four months, there’s only so much they can learn), he places tremendous emphasis on will and desire. Finding out if each boy is “up for it” is his main priority; if they are tough kids, he’ll give them a chance. When Boiler, one of the film’s stars, is pummeled mercilessly in a test bout he assumes that, no matter how hard he trains, Des will only remember the beating. Des, on the other hand, marvels to the camera at the toughness Boiler showed by showing up the next day at the gym, determined to work even harder; he cares about the loss only because Boiler bounced back from it. Later, during the night of fights against Cambridge, Des is marvelous with the team, encouraging them when they need it, pumping them up when the time comes, and emphasizes again and again how proud he is, no matter the results. It’s inspiring that he can develop such affection for this group of boys with lives so different from his own, and that he feels such genuine joy in how far they’ve come.

In addition to its wonderful characters, Blue Blood’s real ace in the hole is in post-production, when the soundtrack was added, an element that gives the film its two most outstanding moments. The first is just a small touch, but it comes so early that it plays a significant part is defining the movie’s tone, and in opening the audience up to it. When scrawny, nerdy Kavanagh first appears on screening, talking about his academics, and the reasons for his interests in the club, the soundtrack booms with The Geto Boys’ Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta, a theme song so absurd that viewers are immediately won over, both by the film and by this unlikely protagonist. The other high point comes late in Blue Blood, during the otherwise surprisingly flat boxing sequence (there’s precious little drama, it turns out, in watching very bad boxing in slow motion, no matter how much you like the fighters). When Charlie, a singer and fine-arts major, fights, the soundtrack is opera, and Des’ words to him, though drowned out by the song, are presented in subtitles, as if they are the translated lyrics to the song. It’s a brilliant touch, and incredibly well-done -- the male solo comes at the breaks between rounds, and Des’ sentences on screen always match the length and tone of the lines being sung. If we didn’t know better, we’d be sure that Des was singing his instructions.

Riley does a tremendous job in his film of making his characters appealing, and deepening their stories beyond stereotypes. Very quickly, it becomes clear that Blue Blood is about much more than posh boys beating the living hell out of one another. Instead, it’s about a group of painfully self-aware young men, all bent on improving themselves in various ways, for various reasons. Whether they want to prove their worth to themselves, break away from their pasts, or follow something through to its conclusion for the first time, all of them take the experience incredibly seriously, and earn our respect for that reason alone. Despite its British focus, the film is likely to appeal to a broad audience; don’t be surprised if it shows up in an indie theater near you this summer, or at the very least on HBO.