With the title of the movie being “Southpaw”, you would
expect the main character to be a left handed fighter. Surprisingly, he is not. In fact, I didn’t notice a left handed
fighter in the movie at all. The title
making no sense is a problem, and a bigger one than you might think. The movie does something toward the very end
that felt like it was only there to try to make some sense out of the title but
that doesn’t work at all and is barely even noticeable.
In some
ways, this movie is a totally clichéd boxing film. In more important ways though, it is not clichéd
at all. For instance, rather than the
typical trick of the movie trying to fool us into thinking that everything is
fine and nothing bad could ever happen to these people, this movie sets the
dark, foreboding tone early. The first
act of the movie feels like the proverbial powder keg waiting to explode all
over the successful lives of our main characters. When the bad thing does happen, it is even more
impactful for having being built up the way that it was. There
is, of course, the typical “chance for redemption” aspect of the story, but it
makes perfect sense in the way this film unfolds.
Jake
Gyllenhaal has the ability to immerse himself into a character like nobody else
working today. I sometimes find it hard
to remember the characters that Jake played simply because I always see the
characters themselves instead of the actor.
That is the ultimate compliment.
This movie is no different. When
Gyllenhaal is on the screen, I see Billy Hope.
His slightly punchy performance in this film is phenomenal and Oscar worthy
in my opinion.
If you’re
looking for a fun movie experience, this film is not it. To say that it is depressing is an
understatement. A really bad thing
happens to the main character, followed by more bad things and more bad
things. Just when you think it will get
a little better, it doesn’t. The movie
never lets up. The depressing tone mixed
with the slow-burn nature of the story caused me to get a little bogged down
about halfway through the film. It’s not
boring exactly, just hard to stay into.
The
characters are very important to this film.
The Billy Hope character is very good.
He is a good person and you want to see him succeed but he is so full of
rage that it makes him totally self-destructive. The
second most important character in the film, Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker), an
aging boxing trainer who tries to help Billy straighten up his life, falls far
short of what I needed the character to be.
Whitaker’s performance is very good.
In fact, the performance is far better than the character itself. This was one of the problems that really hurt
the film.
Antoine
Fuqua (Training Day, Shooter) did a very good job directing this film. The boxing scenes in particular are very well
shot. Nice wide shots show the action well
and the sound editing is terrific. This
is some of the best movie boxing I have ever seen. The ending is built up very well and is legitimately
exciting.
There
is a lot to like about this film, but I mostly saw it as a missed opportunity. All the components were here for what could
have been a great film. The screenplay,
the first written by Kurt Sutter, is what really let it down. It seemed confused, not sure where the real
story of the film was. The real story is
Billy Hope’s rage and his struggle to control it. The problem is, the screenplay gets too
distracted with other, less important things, like beating us over the head
with how depressing the story is. This
is not a bad film at all. The acting is
great and it could be Antione Fuqua’s best effort since Training Day. I just couldn’t help thinking about how much
better it could have been. The Movie Man
gives it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
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