The Big Man (US title: Crossing the Line) is a 1990 British sports drama film directed by David Leland.

[4] Set in a once prosperous mining community, now a ghost town, an unemployed miner who was imprisoned for his part in the miner's strike is released from jail, and in order to make some money agrees to take part in a boxing fight.

However, he discovers the real implications of the fight, and finds himself caught up with the Glaswegian gangland society.

Several years later, the couple have two children and Danny is a striking miner, who is sentenced to six months in prison for assaulting a police officer during a protest.

Frankie has deliberately visited the pub with Mr Mason, who is implied to be involved in organised crime, in an attempt to show off Danny's ability to fight.

He returns home to Beth, having been paid a large sum of money by Mason to engage in a bare-knuckle fight in several weeks' time.

Whilst out training, Danny sees that Beth has taken their children on a bus out of the village to stay in Glasgow with her parents.

Arriving in Glasgow, Danny brings his dog along and stays in a hotel with Frankie, beginning training the next day.

In an attempt to motivate him, Danny is taken to Mason's childhood neighbourhood and introduced to the children playing in the rubble who have become drug addicts.

As such, it was decided that a bare-knuckle fight would take place, with the loser having to complete the assassination and be responsible for any potential criminal underworld reprimands or punishments.

He spots Frankie nearby, who has been slashed across his face as punishment, and who has led Mason and his foot soldiers to the location.

[6][7] while filming the main cast stayed in spare rooms of families in Douglas and Coalburn.

Villager ((Wee boy running)) Douglas Curivan The Radio Times wrote "the script turns cartwheels to gain resonance from Mrs Thatcher's duel with the miners, but to little avail: the picture is "pumped-up" yet irredeemably dull.

"[8] whereas Time Out described the film as "one of Britain's finest existential thrillers in ages...There are minor flaws, but as a portrait of one man's desperate struggle to survive against all odds, the film is tough, taut and intelligently critical of the man's world it depicts.