Blonde Fist

A pugnacious but misbegotten celebration of working-class values, Clarke's directorial debut (he wrote Letter to Brezhnev) is a sad disappointment. Ronnie (Margi Clarke) is an embodiment of female working-class strengths. She also has a deadly right fist, inherited from her bare-knuckle fighter father, which lands her in gaol for assaulting her husband's girlfriend, and later - after she's escaped to America in search of her father - gives her a chance to make some desperately needed money on the female boxing circuit. The film starts intriguingly, with a black-and-white sequence set in the late '50s, in which dad (Hutchinson) fights round the back while mum gives birth. But as we move into colour and modern times, it falls apart: ploddingly paced and cliché-filled.