OH, STOP. You're killing me. This remarkable two-fisted pastiche of both penny-dreadful melodrama and cliched prize- fighter pulp - Rocky reimagined by Ireland's Own - features a scenario that could draw guffaws from a potato.
The perennially drowsy Michael Madsen stars as a widowed ex-boxer who enters a bare-knuckle contest in order to secure the funds for his dying son's operation. "Is mammy up there with the angels?" the child croaks. Honestly. Lampoons don't come any more hilarious than this.
Except, of course, Strength and Honour is not actually a comedy. Mark Mahon, by all accounts an industrious, resourceful fellow, hails from Cork, but he has somehow delivered a film entirely composed of prime, export-strength blarney.
The travelling community is represented as a tribe of noble savages. People are forever asking for pints of "the quare stuff" before launching into irritating twinkly anecdotes. Each new adventure brings forth another slab of generic Celtic warbling on the lachrymose soundtrack. It's like The Quiet Man without all the hard-hitting, diligently researched social realism.
Thank goodness for Vinnie Jones (there's a phrase you don't read every day), who is, at least, allowed to be ridiculous on purpose. The former Gaza- castrator stomps and screeches his way through his role as the reigning champ and, by force of will alone, manages to make such recidivist scenery munchers as Richard Chamberlain and Patrick Bergin look positively underpowered.
Sadly, the stuff that is meant to be funny (we're giving Jones the benefit of the doubt here) isn't half as hilarious as the stuff that sets out to break your heart. Still, Madsen, who, bizarrely, dons his entire Reservoir Dogs costume for his wife's funeral, will surely recover from the embarrassment of his hopeless quasi-Irish accent to play many more heavies in many more terrible action films.
As for the less experienced members of the cast, they would, on this evidence, be well advised to consider careers outside the entertainment industry.
