Southpaw Review

8.5 out of 10

Cast:

Jake Gyllenhaal as Billy Hope

Rachel McAdams as Maureen Hope

Oona Laurence as Leila Hope

50 Cent as Jordan Mains

Miguel Gomez as Miguel Escobar

Naomie Harris as Angela Rivera

Rita Ora                    

Beau Knapp as Jon Jon

Clare Foley as Alice

Victor Ortiz as Ramone

Skylan Brooks as Hoppy

Dominic Colón as Mikey (as Dominic Colon)v 

Directed by Antoine Fuqua           

Story:

Billy “The Great” Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a Light Heavyweight Champion of the world who has anger issues that eventually lead to a tragic event that causes his downfall. When his daughter (Oona Lawrence) is taken away from him, he has to work with a downtrodden trainer (Forest Whitaker) to try to make a comeback and get her back.

Analysis:

Southpaw isn’t a boxing movie. Let’s get that out of the way right from the get-go.

Sure, it opens with a boxing match and it ends with one, and imagine both are as exciting to watch as any match on HBO or Pay Per View—not that I ever watch boxing–but as much as that world forms the backdrop for this drama, it’s more about watching a boxer who has struggled through life fall from the height of fame to his lowest low and the lesson learned from such a life-changing experience.

We meet Jake Gyllenhaal’s Billy Hope just after successfully defending his title using his unconventional style of taking punch after punch before unleashing his rage. Billy’s a family man with a loving wife (Rachel McAdams) and daughter, but when a mouthy young upstart named Miguel Escobar, who wants Billy’s title, goes over the line with his trash talking, the rageful Hope lashes out. That incident leads to things turning bad for Billy as he loses his family and starts to crash, taking drugs and messing up his career and hitting financial ruin. His situation isn’t helped by his sleazy opportunist manager and promoter Jordan Mains, played by 50 Cent, who immediately dumps Billy when he’s outlived his use.

Movies about a sports hero’s fall from grace aren’t anything new, but it’s the way Billy’s story plays out in a clearly delineated three-act structure that keeps you invested. It’s actually a good thing screenwriter Kurt Sutter (“Sons of Anarchy”) and director Antoine Fuqua (The Equalizer) decided to focus on the character dynamics rather than making a straight boxing movie, because it helps deflect comparisons and set it apart. As hard as it is watching Billy Hope’s fall from grace, especially as he tries to reconnect with his daughter after she’s put under the care of child services, that might be the only way to fix what’s wrong, by destroying everything and forcing him to rebuild.

Southpaw’s most prevalent comparison will be to Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, mainly due to the transformation Jake Gyllenhaal goes through to take on the role of Billy Hope. It isn’t just a physical transformation or the ability to handle those aspects of playing a boxer, but it’s also changing everything about the way he talks and moves to make you forget it’s him. Once we‘re adjusted to the way Billy mumbles everything, Gyllenhaal creates quite a layered character, but his performance wouldn’t mean much if he wasn’t surrounded by a cast all doing their best work. Gyllenhaal has some great moments with Rachel McAdams as his wife, and Forest Whitaker is particularly impressive as Billy’s new confidante and trainer, which feels quite grounded despite being the biggest boxing movie cliché. Even young Oona Lawrence brings another dynamic to the mix as she holds her own against Gyllenhaal. Sometimes the dramatic scenes are taken a little too far, but for the most part all of it feels real.

Because of that, Southpaw erases any doubt that Antoine Fuqua has improved greatly as a filmmaker ever since going the indie route with Brooklyn’s Finest, carrying those instincts for creating authentic characters over to his latest.

The film’s more heartbreaking moments are made even moreso by the stirring score by the late James Horner, who has done some of his finest work for Fuqua’s film and sadly passed away shortly afterwards.

Once Billy gets back into the ring against Miguel, whose instigating behavior led to Billy’s downfall, it becomes somewhat predictable where things might go, because that’s what happens when you have any fight between two rivals. At least this one does a good job building up the tension before delivering the inevitable.

The Bottom Line:

More than just a boxing movie as much as a character drama that plays well within the genre, Southpaw is a captivating film mainly due to the performance by Jake Gyllenhaal, whose acting has reached another level. It’s about as close to a modern-day street level Rocky we may ever see.