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 (3)
Plots(1)
Reigning light-heavyweight boxing champion Billy 'The Great' Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) has a loving wife (Rachel McAdams) and child and a promising career ahead of him. However, Billy finds himself in danger of losing all of that after tragedy strikes and he is declared unfit to look after his young daughter Leila (Oona Laurence). Having hit rock-bottom, Billy desperately tries to regain control of his life and win back custody of his little girl with the help of boxing trainer Titus 'Tick' Wills (Forest Whitaker). (Entertainment in Video)
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Reviews (12)
I guess I haven't seen any boxing movies yet, but I was still able to guess which character would be in which type of shot TEN MINUTES IN ADVANCE! So, thanks a bunch, Kurt. It's more interesting to watch Fuqua being able to handle this assignment with alternating formal styles. The documentary "talking heads", zoomed in camera during big fights, changing the focus between multiple actors, the hand-held close-ups on faces and dark toning as the hero writhes at rock bottom, and then that quiet simple classic montage style of preparing for the climax. This actually subtly tells you what the film should have been about in the first place, because it seems to me that Hollywood is currently over-indulging in whiny whiny whiners, however much they're played by Oscar-chasing aces like Gyllenhaal. Which is actually kind of funny, because I think the little girl is outperforming everybody.
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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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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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Jake Gyllenhaal was the reason why I watched this movie, but I was a bit worried about the director. Antoine Fuqua makes technically sound movies. So, the action sequences usually work out well. But it’s worse when it comes to emotions, dialogues and all other scenes that contain no action. In other words, most of the movie. Antione fails terribly at that and I actually thought I wasn’t going to be able to finish the movie and that I was going to go to bed instead. I haven’t seen such a boring and worthless movie for a long time. There are plenty of boxing dramas and I think every single one of them was better than Southpaw.
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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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