'Welcome to The Punch' Pic Shows James McAvoy's a Cool Customer

James McAvoy impressed me as a young Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men: First Class, but his role in the new action film, Welcome to The Punch from director Eran Creevy (Shifty) could go down as his coolest yet.   The gritty crime drama, Welcome to The Punch will pit a young detective Max Lewinsky (McAvoy) against the one criminal mastermind, Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong) who avoided his capture and fled to Iceland.   When Sternwood's son finds himself in trouble, he must show his face again, giving Lewinsky a second chance at justice.

But, in a surprising turn Sternwood and Lewinsky put their feud aside in a collective effort to take down a larger more lethal conspiracy.  Unfortunately I haven't the foggiest idea what that entails, sorry.

Director Creevy said this about his script, "We wanted to be as ambitious as possible.  People are held back by a budget and a concept sometimes, but I knew that if I made it good enough it wouldn’t matter."

Here's the first pic released from the film and it's pretty cool for as basic as a Foxy Bingo game. McAvoy, the bright city lights and a killer ride.

Welcome to The Punch opens on September 7, 2012 in the U.K.  No word on when it'll be released in the states and elsewhere.  I'm definitely intrigued by this, as the McAvoy/Strong pairing could prove itself to be a dynamic duo.