Certificate 15, 89 mins

Read Cosmo Landesman's Sunday Times review

Is it a gentlemanly rivalry between two august educational establishments that prompts amateur boxers from Oxford and Cambridge to face each other in the ring once a year? Nah, they just hate each other’s guts. Blue Blood is an involving documentary that follows a group of Oxford University students in their quest to earn the coveted blazer of the Oxford Blues – the elite team chosen to compete in the annual Varsity match.

Among their ranks are a fine artist, a philosopher, a biochemist, a mathematician and an insufferable astrophysicist, and they are united by their need to prove that they can think with their fists as effectively as with their finely trained minds. Or, as the affable charmer Charlie Ogilvie puts it, “that he’s not a pussy”.

Issues about fathers abound. Boiler, a maths student, idolises his, while Fred, a bruised biochemist, punches out his frustration with the dad who abandoned him. Meanwhile golden boy Charlie, the artist, views boxing as yet another way to lure the ladies.

The director is Stevan Riley, an Oxford alumnus who also filmed and edited the movie, and shows skill at all three jobs. The picture is edited with real wit. Riley was fortunate that the year’s aspiring boxers were a diverse bunch, all equally colourful in their own way. But the playful way the film is put together accentuates each personality.

Riley has particular fun with Justin Bronder, a graduate from the United States Air Force Academy who is visiting as a PhD astrophysics student. Justin has a tendency to talk about himself in the third person: “Justin Bronder has two speeds – hard and much harder.” He leads the training sessions, clearly believing that his example and motivating words will be an inspiration to the others. He’s certainly the most punchable man in Oxford.

The movie, particularly its terrific climactic fight sequences, is lifted further by an inspired soundtrack. This assured and highly entertaining film could hold its own against pretty much any sporting documentary you care to name.

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