"Punishment"

12 August 2026

7 mins 10s

Jack's back.

Marcus Kartal's restless documentary focuses on Jack Dempsey Ewbank, a former professional boxer who sold drugs to fund his career, only to end up in prison for a long stretch. Thanks to his fighting background and hitherto untapped talent for teaching, however, Ewbank's punishment proved to be the making of him.

The man we see in the present day—think Tom Hardy as Charles Bronson, only covered from head to toe in tattoos—relates how fellow prisoners asked for boxing lessons. As their skills increased, so did their discipline and self-esteem; Ewbank, meanwhile, says he "went in as an athlete and I come out a ten-times better athlete".

You can see and hear why people are drawn to the man who reckons he was destined to become a boxer by name alone (Jack Dempsey was heavyweight champion of the world from 1919 to 1926, while Ewbank is only a couple of letters down the road from Eubank). Kartal's film—cut to a tee by Henry Thackray—also serves as a useful plug for the Traphouse, a gym founded by a man eager to make up for lost time.

UK

Short Film