Big Man

The Big Man is not a true genre movie. It isn't a boxing movie, not a crime movie and not a family drama, but elements from all those genres meet somewhere in this film.

The setting is great. The director managed to choose a location that is barren, almost colourless and is obviously a skeleton of what it once was; a mining town. The coal mine has been shut down long ago and that is the beginning of the story. But I'm not going to give too much away of the hows and what's, for the film itself is good enough to tell it's own story without any problems.

The acting is good. I can't tell if the people could pass as those that they portray, but they make it believable for those who have never been in Scotland. It's very easy to admire Neeson; main reason is that there are many villages with someone like him, only here it goes a little to the extreme.

Even if there are fighters, gangsters and blood, this is still a drama. So it's rather slow. Don't watch this for the boxing or the gangsterism alone. All those elements make it a very rich movie, sometimes even towards the exotic. Downside to this is that it's not always easy to adapt 'all' facets of life. The movie focuses only once on a happening, and that is the fight it's all about. The rest is a little out of focus, but in the end it comes together to one important lesson.

As some people in other comments already noticed; music is by Ennio Morricone. It's strange at first to hear an Italian soundtrack (with this I mean music in the style for Italian thrillers) when viewing Scotland, but is sure works. The music during the fight is a great build-up piece that goes from suspenseful to epic.

I don't know what score to give this. I wanted to give it a 7, maybe because I didn't enjoy everything in it, but I'll give and 8 after all; I find this movie too sympathetic to give a 7 and there are many elements that I enjoy.

Saw it on a Dutch 6 euro DVD with excellent quality and lots of subtitles. Maybe best purchase this month.

It was a nice low budget movie. Liam Neeson's acting was fabulous in the film. I watched this movie because I am on a mission to complete watching all Liam Neeson's movie. If you are a boxing fan and Liam Neeson is your favorite, it's a must watch.

I liked this film a lot. It is about a working-class family in a town in Scotland, with the father (Liam Neeson) and mother (Whalley-Kilmer) at odds. At issue is Neeson's desire to earn for his family, in a more lucrative measure than he did during the dozen years he spent as a miner.

When Neeson receives an offer to get back into the ring for a bare-knuckles fight in Glasgow, he accepts - for the money, he says, though there are intimations that fighting is more than a job for him. The fight has been organized by two local shady characters, and the organized crime element looms large in the film. The resulting conflicts envelop Neeson, his family and friends, and his community.

There is a lot of talent at work in "The Big Man" (also called "Crossing the Line"), including excellent music by the legendary Ennio Morricone. Hugh Grant has a cameo doing a passable Scottish accent. Neeson is, of course, a world-class actor, and anything he is in is worthwhile seeing.

The production feels like a labor of love for all concerned, and the results show. The fight scene is not for the faint of heart.

Nobody ever claimed this was a great movie, but surely the fact that nearly 25 minutes were cut from the U.S. release (retitled "Crossing the Line" from original "The Big Man") explains why no one was enthusiastic about it over here. I finally got around to watching the cut version (still the only one available in the U.S., I believe), and it seems choppy and formulaic in a way that suggests the extras that often make all the difference-atmosphere, character background, nuance-were exactly what got cut. This results in a movie that should be better, particularly with this cast, but never rises above adequate.

The family's struggles in a tough Scottish economy, the criminal connections Neeson is lured into et al. aren't properly established before they're taken for granted by the narrative, giving them little force. In particularly, Whalley-Kilmer hardly has a character to play, though she and the kids are the entire reason Neeson's figure lets himself get sucked into the fighting he doesn't at all want to do save for the money. Hugh Grant turns up briefly, and in this edit, it's not even clear who his character is or why he's here.

When we finally get to a proper fight (opposite Rab Affleck, who'd been a champion boxer in real life before this movie started his acting career), it's powerfully brutal. Neeson fans will probably never have seen him in such spectacular physical condition before, and he's fully committed in acting terms here as well. The later parts of the film feel less truncated than the early progress, which presumably most of the American-release cuts came out of, so it does get better.

Yet in its U.S. cut, at least, this isn't exactly a good boxing, domestic or crime drama, but an underdeveloped muddle of all three. While it's still not a bad film, you can certainly tell they had something better in mind. The much higher regard it's held in by people who've seen the two-hour "Big Man" version makes it clear that that's the film to see, not "Crossing the Line."

I don't understand why this film has a rating so low of course the movie is not perfect has some scenes that I don't fully understandand also makes you wonder some questions but the movie is very good movie in all aspects, A fantastic music by the legendary Ennio Morricone, a very good acting( especially by Liam Neeson and Billy Connolly), and a main character that you can sympathize with him beacuse you understand Danny Scoular he's unemployed and wants to gain money for his family to have a better life so he takes this opportunity beacuse is what he does best but despite of earn his money with his two fists he's a gentleman he's a trully Big Man