Rating: NR | Runtime: 103 minutes
Release Date: September 12th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Sunrise Films
Director(s): Vincent Grashaw
Writer(s): Will Janowitz

Burn the ships.

Bernard ‘Bang Bang’ Rozyski (Tim Blake Nelson) is a recluse these days. We’d like to think it’s because he’s sick of everyone recognizing him to relive his worst moments in the ring rather than his best, but the real reason is just that he’s a violent reprobate better suited to the darkness of his own home. Unfortunately, the man he credits as ruining his career and life has infiltrated that sanctuary. Bang can change the channel when Darnell Washington’s (Glenn Plummer) juicer commercials play, but a run for mayor now has his face plastered everywhere.

Director Vincent Grashaw and writer Will Janowitz’s Bang Bang opens on a pretty auspicious day as a result. Not only has the former pugilist decided to enter the outside world to publicly assassinate his nemesis, but his estranged daughter (Nina Arianda’s Jen) and grandson (Andrew Liner’s Justin, although his grandfather calls him ‘Jobs’) are inside his house upon failing to pull the trigger. She needs Bang to watch the teen in Detroit while she settles into a new job in Chicago because he still has community service to complete.

Bang obviously wants nothing to do with the task and makes that known quite clearly. He relents, though, since his allergy to vulnerability and love is still a mask despite having replaced his face many decades prior. And then when he sees Jobs in action (to defend his grandfather from a situation that may have been manipulated specifically to witness that result), Bang gets inspired by a newfound purpose to do for the boy what his father did for him. What he fails to remember is that all his troubles ultimately stemmed from accepting that same “help.”

So, what is the real motivation here? To teach his grandson a skill that can serve him later in life? Or to live vicariously through him while pulling his strings like a marionette? It’s inevitably proven to be a mix of the two, but that doesn’t make it better when the latter carries with it so much risk. Bang knows it too, but he can’t stop chasing that high. He’s reinvigorated working alongside his friend John (Kevin Corrigan) and even finds the courage to reconnect with his old flame Sharon (Erica Gimpel)—who just so happens to also be Washington’s cousin.

The Jobs of it all becomes more catalyst for the narrative than its purpose. His interest in the sport allows us to get into Bang’s mind and learn about the trauma and abuse endured at the hands of his father. It leads Bang onto a collision course with Washington considering the latter owns the best gym in Detroit and thus gives Jobs the best test for a first bout. And that match result leads Bang to sleepwalk into his past to try and reconcile his own childhood with the one he gave his daughter since both have merged to conjure only sorrow for too long.

It’s a bleak trajectory traveled by a broken man who’s allowed his suffering to turn his bitterness into his identity. Hot-tempered enough to jump down John’s throat for apparently insinuating Bang is wheelchair-bound via an off-the-cuff observation that his hips must be better, you never know where his volatility will take a scene. Even tender moments with Sharon tend to go off the rails by the dumbest of triggers—like a photo of her and her cousin. Bang isn’t just haunted by his past; he uses it to fuel his rage. A rage to distract from his pain.

Janowitz does a nice job writing in some intriguing peripheral characters to help on this journey too. Often colorful enough to make an impact even if they only get a scene each. He plays one of them (Justin’s community service liaison Dylan), but there’s also Daniella Pineda’s genial Officer Flores and Dana Namerode as one of three current residents in Bang’s former mansion. Their varied personalities and histories provide new targets to be dressed down by Bang as well as figures helping him recall contextually relevant emotions.

It shouldn’t therefore be a shock to learn that Nelson shines as the man in the middle of the chaos. Similar to Old Henry, the character actor really sinks his teeth into the role to embody the gruff exterior while still maintaining a level of pathos that ensures he never alienates the audience. As the central message of the film portrays, Bang being a bully doesn’t mean he can’t also be a victim. His catharsis won’t be easily attained, but it does supply invaluable relief since fighting is all he knows. It’s become his language to the point where even love is battle.

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Tim Blake Nelson in BANG BANG; courtesy of Sunrise Films.