Kid Snow review – boxing period drama set in outback Australia pulls its punches

Tent boxing is an interesting subject for a movie: a now-defunct Australian recreation positioned on the Venn diagram overlay between sports event and circus act, involving troupes of fighters performing low-rent spectacles for outback audiences.

It’s at the centre of director Paul Goldman’s 70s-set drama Kid Snow, whose scruffy titular character – played by Billy Howle – is a bottomed-out Irish boxer who has become part of this world, working for a show run by his brother Rory (Tom Bateman).

In accordance with boxing movie lore, the protagonist is given a chance to settle old scores when he’s offered a fight with the man – now the Commonwealth champion – he lost to one fateful, tragedy-filled evening a decade ago.

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Kid is the underdog who Must Prove Himself by Rising to the Challenge and Putting Everything on the Line, signalling yet another fusty comeback narrative – this one unfortunately told rather staidly and unimaginatively, with flecks of dramatic intrigue here and there.

Vividly capturing the noise and spectacle of tent boxing and its cultural context would have brought some flair and excitement, but as both a sports movie and a period drama the film feels only partially rendered, burdened by the tropes of a well-flogged genre and not fully coming alive as a time capsule-esque vision of an outmoded Australian recreation.

The film begins like Martin Scorsese’s often imitated but rarely equalled masterpiece Raging Bull, with tastefully framed slow-mo shots capturing the protagonist bobbing around on the spot in the ring, emphasising body movement and physicality over the roar of the crowd. In fact virtually no crowd can be seen, the ring ensconced in a fog-like mist that blurs out the background, looking stylishly smoky and on a practical level reducing the need for extras or even a set that resembles a sporting venue. You can get away with this trick once, especially when the audience is still acclimatising to the film, but when Goldman deploys it again for the big televised match in the final act, it seems pretty obviously a cost-saving technique.

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After losing the big fight in the prologue, tragedy hits when a rattled Kid crashes his car, killing his father (John Brumpton) and permanently injuring his brother. The story jumps ahead a decade, Kid’s dreams dashed until he’s given the opportunity to take part in the aforementioned rematch. So the protagonist begins training – although, oddly, the film feels only half committed to capturing his preparations for the big fight, despite how central it is to the premise.

Given more dramatic prominence is Kid’s relationship with single mother Sunny (Phoebe Tonkin), who joins the troupe as a dancer. Like most of the film’s characters she has a dark past, drip-fed through regret-tinged potted monologues. Other supporting characters include the Indigenous boxers Lizard (Hunter Page-Lochard) and Lovely (Mark Coles Smith), who receive decent screen time but feel strangely underdeveloped, with little sense of what they stand for or are motivated by. Kid and Sunny, however, are easy to read: both are burdened by the past, in search of exits and open to the possibility of love.

Tonkin brings a weary, baggy-eyed melancholia that’s quite interesting; you can feel her nudging the drama towards a heavier and moodier key. Howle is also strong in the eponymous role, with a shaggy haven’t-showered-for-a-week energy that feels genuine and lived-in. But I never felt a strong emotional connection to him and the drama never takes off. The dialogue also feels very finessed, borderline laboured. Pace and energy-wise there are issues too: the structure drifts and you don’t get a strong sense the drama is escalating and the stakes increasing.

Kid Snow has a bit more character than 2008’s The Tender Hook, set in 1920s Sydney and starring Hugo Weaving as a gangster-like fight organiser and Matthew Le Nevez as the earnest up-and-comer. That film had a bigger budget and thus more impressive period details but lacked friction and flair, even more infused with the scent of mothballs. The door remains open for someone to make a great Australian boxing period drama.

• Kid Snow opens in Australian cinemas on 12 September