Sucker Punch The Movie

There are strong elements of the classic Western in ‘Sucker Punch’. Buchinsky is the ‘Shane’ style stranger, a seemingly unbeatable fighter (gunslinger) with a secret past, who drifts into town and changes the lives of everyone he comes into contact with, without us ever really learning too much about him. At the same time the film is a comic mismatched ‘buddy’ movie, thanks to the well-timed interplay and chemistry between Gordon Alexander, Danny John Jules and Jimmy Kent. Playing like ‘High Plains Drifter’ meets ‘Only Fools and Horses’, by the end of the film you realise that Buchinsky has manipulated everyone for his own reasons and is the only character with a consistent overview of the whole picture.

‘While this is not an American action film, this is certainly not a ‘mockney’ cockney gangster film either as both Malcolm and I are very fond of European and Japanese cinema and we hope the film reflects that influence. This is our urban western but lets be honest, the best westerns of a generation were indirectly derived from Japanese cinema anyway.’

Above all else, ‘Sucker Punch’ is very much a human story about the dreams that drive us all, whilst questioning the often misguided nature of our aspirations and the true meaning of success. To this end Harley is an everyman, the little guy with big dreams desperate to prove his worth. Through the course of the film we realise that his idea of what constitutes success is flawed and what he aspires to, Maitland’s lifestyle, is ultimately sordid and second rate. Without realising it, he already stands for the indomitable human spirit, as despite all his flaws he is incorrigible, a rubber ball always bouncing back from whatever life throws at him. It takes the enigmatic Buchinsky to show him that he already has everything he needs within him to be a true success. It was this universal humanity to Harley that drew Danny John Jules to the film.

‘It has been a joy to work on and I don’t think you’ll ever get a film like this made at the film council because ‘Jobs for the boys’ just doesn’t cut it in this game. Where else can you get a Black lead in a movie that isn’t a bloodthirsty, gun-toting yardie rapist who has a penchant for smuggling drugs, dabbles in gay pedophiliac, wears baggy jeans, listens to So Solid and lives on a council estate with his single mother and eight brothers and sisters together with his four baby mothers and his twelve kids. Not in my lifetime! Big Up Sucker Punch!’

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