Jawbone

Jimmy McCabe was once a youth boxing champion, but his life has since come apart. Homeless and battling alcoholism, he reaches his lowest point and returns to the gym where he trained as a boy, the only place and the only people he can still turn to. There he finds the owner, his corner man and a promoter, who together form the closest thing to a family he has left. Back in training despite having been written off as a contender years earlier, Jimmy takes on a fight that puts everything on the line as he tries to rebuild a place for himself.

Jawbone is a British drama directed by Thomas Napper, who wrote nothing here; the screenplay is by Johnny Harris, who also takes the lead role and produced alongside Michael Elliott. The cast includes Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Michael Smiley, Luke J.I. Smith and Anna Wilson-Hall. It was released in 2017 and runs 91 minutes.

Napper's first feature, it precedes Widow Clicquot (2024) in his directing career. Reception sits in mixed-to-positive territory: critics gave it 7.3/10 across 26 reviews, while on IMDb it holds 6.5/10 from around 3,300 votes and on TMDB 6.1/10 from 83 votes, so audiences rate it a little lower than reviewers do.