Directed by:
Antoine FuquaScreenplay:
Kurt SutterCinematography:
Mauro FioreComposer:
James HornerCast:
Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, Naomie Harris, 50 Cent, Oona Laurence, Skylan Brooks, Beau Knapp, Rachel McAdams, Victor Ortiz, Miguel Gomez, Dominic Colón (more)VOD (5)
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Billy "The Great" Hope (Gyllenhaal) is the reigning Junior Middleweight Champion whose unorthodox stance, the so-called "Southpaw," consists of an ineloquent, though brutal, display of offensive fighting...one fueled by his own feelings of inadequacy and a desperate need for love, money and fame. With a beautiful family, home and financial security, Billy is on top both in and out of the ring until a tragic accident leaves his wife dead and sends him into a downward spiral. His days now an endless haze of alcohol and prescription drugs, his daughter taken by Child Services and his home repossessed by the bank, Billy's fate is all but sealed until a washed up former boxer named Tick agrees to take the bereaved pugilist under his wing so long as he agrees to his strict ethos. Relentless and utterly committed to a fighter that thinks as much as he throws punches, Tick rebuilds Billy into a new man: one that is agile, fearsome and uncompromising in the ring while thoughtful, loving and disciplined outside of it. Now, as he works to regain custody of his daughter and mounts a professional comeback, Billy must face his demons head-on as he learns that, sometimes, your greatest opponent can be yourself. (Entertainment One)
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Reviews (12)
Simply said, when the actor and director are on completely different level in terms of quality. While Gyllenhaal’s performance is brilliant and he is even "aiming for Oscar", Fuqua only makes just another everyday consumer version of the thousand-times-seen boxing B-movie melodrama, in which perhaps all genre clichés are present; just often in a non-functional style. It also strangely tends to fade away, because it starts with by far the best scene and then it only gets worse especially after falling to the bottom, when the true values are revealed and the after getting at its height again. It's kind of sad when the opening match has a driving force, energy and charge and the final one has nothing. It holds together only thanks to Gyllenhaal’s performance, but as I mentioned, his excellent performance seems almost inappropriate in this movie.
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Southpaw = the Rocky of the new generation! I didn't have very high expectations, but the film swept me up in its plot from beginning to end and had me emotionally wrung out like nothing I've seen in a long time. Story-wise, the film doesn't bring anything groundbreaking to the genre, but the Oscar-worthy performances, the fierce emotional power, the decent pacing, perfect training montage to Eminem's music, and the thrilling final fight make for an honest-to-goodness heartbreaker at the very least. I cheered, I cried, I screamed like I haven't in a long time. Liked it more than Warrior. 85%.
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In his screenwriting debut, Kurt Sutter knocks out originality in the first round. (Everything important is actually revealed in the opening credits, based on which it isn’t hard to figure out that Whitaker will play a more important role than Rachel McAdams, so you end up just waiting for him to appear on the scene and wondering whether he will actually play the role that logically suits him.) The initial plot twist, which is given away in the trailer, is followed by a textbook story of redemption and second chances. The protagonist must first sink to the bottom in order to get back on his feet, find his inner balance and take on the antagonist. Partial successes in the sports storyline are dampened by failures in the relationship storyline (the estranged daughter) so that the protagonist still has something to contend with and the viewer is still “hooked”. Southpaw is different from the first Rocky only in that the rise of the boxer, who doesn’t fight for the heart of his beloved, but for his daughter’s trust, begins after he goes from riches to rags. It is not clear whether Sutter, who comes from a poor family, intended to say that real boxers don’t fight for fame, but for the love of the sport. Billy obviously does not plan to find contentment in training boys from the poor side of town for the rest of his life. The film is equally uncritical with respect to the self-destructive nature of fighting sports (not only in comparison with Raging Bull and the recent Foxcatcher). Thanks to the journalistically intrusive camerawork and Jake Gyllenhaal’s naturalistic acting, the matches are unpleasantly violent, but they mainly result in catharsis rather than pain. Or once a fighter, always a fighter. I fully understand and recognise the existence of such self-actualising and self-affirming melodramas, especially when they aren’t offensively stupid and there isn’t much to fault them for with respect to craftsmanship and narrative, but I also wonder what good another variation on the same theme and the same formula is in the long-term perspective other than to garner Oscar nominations for a few actors. Particularly in the case of the aloof Whitaker, who is starting to play similar personifications of old age and wisdom as Clint Eastwood (whose Million Dollar Baby offers a much less gratuitous plot twist), it wouldn’t bother me if it went no further than a nomination. Gyllenhaal sometimes tries too hard for an award. Just like the Southpaw itself. 60%
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Why does everybody give Southpaw three stars? Because it’s fine in terms of craftsmanship, it has quite a few emotionally tense moments, the ring scenes are very naturalistic thanks to the contact camerawork, and the two outstanding actors, Jake Gyllenhaal and Forest Whitaker, wring their talents to the last drop of sweat and blood. But why only three stars? Because nothing happens that we wouldn’t have expected in advance today (the only seemingly surprising twist is revealed in the distributor's blurb). After all, "fine in terms of craftsmanship" today is any project with such budget and cast, and then if we were to put this film’s level of emotion on some imaginary ring facing Warrior, the mentally unstable champion Billy Hope, his cliché-ridden sporting and moral reboot, and the routine Uncle Fugua would all walk away ignominiously defeated by a painful knockout. Good ol’ three stars… ;)
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It’s a more expensive and bloated Million Dollar Baby with the opposite sex in the lead role, and the injury, instead of physical, is psychological. Fuqua fits into the mainstream much more than Eastwood, so where Clint meticulously crafted scenes with slow piano, dull sounds of punches, and masterful camera capturing the gray gym, Fuqua goes for it with loud hip-hop and jerky editing. Maybe it might sound like a criticism, but it isn't. Fuqua has worked hard recently, found a good dramaturge, and although he still has a boring and ordinary screenwriter, both Equalizer and Southpaw naturally generate emotions in the viewer. And so I can confidently say that Southpaw is the director's most mature and complete film in every aspect since Training Day, and I can easily add a second parallel: a similarly expressive main character who carries the whole film on his shoulders as in the Oscar-winning hit, but this time it’s the trainer vs. apprentice. Forest Whitaker is undoubtedly the best character of the film, but Jake Gyllenhaal could win prestigious awards with his explicit acting and physically demanding role. Surprisingly, Southpaw is authentic, sincere, and raw enough through all its clichés, predictability, and simple narrative storytelling of dreams, falls, rises, and finding the right values, to entertain not only a simple consumer but also someone who wants a bit more from a film, is willing to overlook the classic drawbacks of big productions and get drawn into it.
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