Review: Six Rounds

For those unfortunate enough to have missed the original 2016 West End production of Dreamgirls, more than Jennifer Hudson's shake-the-rafters rendition of the classic "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," there was the thunderous performance of one Adam J. Bernard, simply electrifying as the James Brown-like performer Jimmy Early. To watch him was to witness a supernova and to hope that this was no mere fluke, but the beginning of a long and successful career.

Six Rounds, Bernard's film debut, proves he is one to watch as is the film's writer-director Marcus Flemmings, who has clearly been influenced by the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Like the latter's Raging Bull, Six Rounds is presented in glorious black-and-white, though there are several scenes in colour, and is possessed of a Shakespearean undercurrent. Set in London in the aftermath of the 2011 riots, which were incited by the murder of an unarmed man by a Metropolitan police officer, the film focuses on Bernard's former pugilist Stally as he navigates his way through racial and societal minefields.

Stally has a job and a girlfriend Mermaid (Phoebe Torrance), who clearly comes from a different background and who has dreams of the two of them being a happy couple living a perfect life. Stally's past comes back to haunt him in the form of best mate Chris (Santino Zicchi), who emotionally blackmails him into getting back into the ring to get him out of trouble. Zicchi is undoubtedly the most problematic element of Six Rounds, delivering a performance so grating that it dilutes the power of Stally's conflict and nearly upends the film's cool and controlled execution. To be fair, Zicchi is not the only culprit here. Flemming's dialogue can, at times, be hard to digest, particularly in the scenes between Stally and Mermaid, which can verge into the realm of dime store melodrama.

Indeed, in addition to Bernard's affecting portrayal, Flemming's uncommon execution is one of the film's selling points. Flemming presents the narrative in a chronologically non-linear fashion, using the rounds of a boxing match to convey Stalley's internal strife and which renders a familiar story more psychologically insightful than it has any right to be.

Six Rounds

Directed by: Marcus Flemmings

Written by: Marcus Flemmings

Starring: Adam J. Bernard, Phoebe Torrance, Santino Zicchi