For about five minutes, “The Cut” gives the audience what they’d expect from a movie set in the world of boxing. A fighter played by Orlando Bloom is in the ring, and the action is ferocious, and ferociously photographed in bruising closeups. The punches are thunderous, the blood flows, and you know just what you’re going to get: another tough drama about an over-the-hill boxer getting one last shot at the big time.
And then director Sean Ellis (“Metro Manila,” “Eight for Silver”) and writer Justin Bull pull the rug out from under the audience – because that opening sequence in the ring is the last time boxing action is going to be center stage in “The Cut.”