OrlandoBlooms boxing movie The Cut is interminable and painful for all involved

The latest grungy fight drama to test the limits of unpleasantness is “The Cut,” which premiered Thursday at the Toronto International Film Festival.Running time: 99 minutes.Not yet rated.Bidding adieu to Middle Earth and the high seas, Orlando Bloom plays a troubled Irish boxer — in fact, he’s called The Boxer — who’s asked to return to the pro circuit after 10 years away for a splashy bout in Las Vegas.At the start, “The Cut” is an adequate, typical gloves-and-shoves picture.

And then, with a snap of the fingers, director Sean Ellis’ film turns absolutely interminable.The main crux of this displeasure cruise is Bloom’s character losing 28 pounds in just six days to be eligible to compete. That means locking himself away in a ghastly hotel room, eating hardly any food, popping laxatives like TicTacs, using dangerous illegal drugs and sweating profusely.He nearly dies.But that’s not a potent enough dose of misery.

We also witness flashbacks to his terrible childhood in Northern Ireland, surrounded by IRA terrorists and a sex worker mom who, in a despicable moment, offers her young son up to a paying pedophile.He learns to fight to stay alive.Are these realistic horrors in an ugly and desperate world? Sure.But condensed into two hours, it becomes just short of impossible to engage with a story in which the main character sets out to conquer his past demons by introducing yet more demons. More than half the film is uninterrupted psychological torment and bodily trauma.And as he writhes and injects, we don’t much like the boxer, find him intriguing or believe in anything he aims to do.The only hero you root for is the end credits.Caitríona Balfe from “Outlander” plays the boxer’s girlfriend Caitlin, who exists in a constant state of worry.

Understandably.But it’s a dull part for a magnetic actress.John Turturro is Donny’s reprehensible trainer Boz, who I had enough of after five minutes.Bloom commits admirably to the cause, and ...