Boxed Movie Review

I popped Boxed into the DVD player because the press release said it was "Like Reservoir Dogs... with priests!"

OK, that's interesting. One priest cutting off another priest's ear with the super sounds of the '70s in the background? Could be fun.

Unfortunately I guess there wasn't enough room on the press release to mention that it was only one priest trapped in this Irish hideout and that it was mostly IRA operatives with him. And those operatives all have super-thick accents made worse by the balaclavas over their faces. The whole idea? The thugs have brought a priest (Tom Murphy) to hear the confession of a man they're about to execute. Only they got the wrong guy to execute, and the wrong priest. Not very good IRA operatives it turns out.

As our priest wrestles with his own morality (in part the idea here is that if they confess to the priest he can't rat them out due to his vows), much of the film amounts to a big rap session over religion and IRA tactics, with everyone confined in a dingy box in the middle of nowhere. Nothing wrong with that, but there's really nothing new that this 79-minute movie has to add to 20 centuries of debate and discussion over whether the ends justify the means.

Murphy is the star of the show in both name and reality. The rest of the cast may as well have all been played by one person, except for the minute fact that one of the operatives is a woman. The movie is cheaply made and has sound quality that ranks among the worst I've heard in years, but at least director Marion Comer has a grasp on directorial basics, however misguided they are here.