Twentyfourseven

Bob Hoskins' best role in years is Alan Darcy, a self-described casualty of Britain's Thatcher era, who starts a boxing club to help salvage the lives of his depressed town's dead-end kids. Rookie feature director Shane Meadows finds a nice balance between kitchen-sink realism and Hoskins' lyric/tragic role in this black-and-white drama. Darcy's lonely inner life unfolds in beautifully observed private moments — such as the scene in which Darcy, suddenly knowing that the shopgirl he fancies will never love him, sees her handprint on a countertop. With Twentyfourseven so full of violence and despair, the director's light touch makes all the difference. A-

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