Where Cinderella Man was about a boxer in poverty, played like a very shy, mature and not very angry character by Russel Crowe, and South Paw on the other hand was a very angry boxer; The Brawler is about a boxer who somehow develops a passion for Boxing in all wrong situation.
Anuraag Kashyap with all his raw and modern film-making talent, often suffers from the problem of showing a large story in small time frame. It took two movies for him to show Gangs of Wasseypur and in The Brawler also he has tried stuffing too many aspects of not only the realities required for the story but also the things Mr. Kahsyap was touched upon by, for instance the incident of Dadri.
The main plot where the director could have elevated the hostility between two strong and opposite characters, while adding to the characters of two, he looks distracted towards other frames of life.
There are movies where a huge amount of background stories are added to the characters not by showing all of it but by adding some features or a one liner to the character, for instance the role by joaquin phoenix in The Master, or 15-20 mins performance of Leonardo in Django Unchained.
Ravi Kishan and Jimmi Shergil have outdone themselves again; also the Boxer and his wife are played upto the mark, but the character who probably took all the attention without saying too much was the friend of the Boxer, Mr. Gopal played by a very talented actor Shree Dhar Dubey. Mr. Dubey also left is remarkable presence in Masaan but in this film he was given more frames and he has not left a single one without defining to the audience as well as to the other actors also, "what's ACTING is".
All in all the movie should be credited with its bold and beautiful story telling. There are always flaws in a product and hence the scope of betterment for the next one. The trauma going around the lead character shown in the movie makes it indigestible to accept that anyone can perform positively while his wife is kidnapped, kidney is broken and the skull is open owing to an iron rod. Also the scene where Bhagwan D Mishra breakes Duhshashan's Janghas seems week due to improper reaction from the wife of Gopal Mishra.
The weakest part probably was the climax, but its a practical and most real climax so it is accepted as a story.
Apart from Mr. Dubey's performance, the other best performance was from Mr. Ravi Kishan who from his attire (kudos to costume designer), his way of talking without much coming from the screenplay showed how a surviver and struggler from a low caste would behave and advise others.