Toronto film festival: the actor gives a physically committed performance as a retired boxer cutting weight with dangerous speed in a silly and overcooked drama

“There is no ripcord!” screams a furiously hammy John Turturro repeatedly in lurid boxing psychodrama The Cut, a film that often makes you wish there was one for us to pull. Not because it’s all just too intense but because what could have been a tough and probing study of over-the-cliff male body obsession instead becomes a ridiculously overcooked shock horror. The more British director Sean Ellis prods and provokes, the hokier it all gets, a film about cutting weight that could have benefited from a leaner edit.

Turturro is focusing his energy and ire on Orlando Bloom’s retired one-time great, hoping for an unlikely comeback, travelling from Ireland to Vegas for a high-stakes bout after another fighter dropped out. Bloom is an actor who also is in need of a career boost having struggled to graduate from franchise fodder to grown-up fare, recently slumming it in low-rent action thrillers. As the unnamed boxer, he’s still hungry for a second chance although there’s one small catch: he’s about 30lbs too heavy and there’s only a week to go. Shady promoter Donny (ex-Eastender Gary Beadle going full cartoon) is willing to take the risk with a little fiddling at an early weigh-in if it can then be lost with breakneck speed.

The Cut is screening at the Toronto film festival and is seeking distribution