Strengths: Gyllenhaal's fantastic performance Weaknesses: Grotesque and Compounding Clichés, over revealing trailer, uneven supporting characters, narrative familiarity...etc, this was a bad movie.
A paradox, contradiction, how could Gyllenhaal team up with director Antoine Fuqua? The actor that has come out with some of my favorite films in recent years teams up with the director of The Equalizer, and Olympus has Fallen to do a boxing movie? As many of my readers know, last year's NightCrawler blew me away and was my favorite movie that year, and the year before Prisoner's was my favorite movie, and the year before End of Watch was among my favorites of the year. Even with one of my favorite actors, Jake Gyllenhaal, I had low expectations, and even those weren't met.
Southpaw begins with crazed boxer Billy Hope in his pre fight mindset, getting his fists wrapped before using them. His headphones are in and they are loud, muting everything else out with pure adrenaline, then his wife Maureen, played very efficiently by Rachel McAdams, enters. Everyone leaves the room and she takes off his headset and tells him to not getting punched too much, their is an obvious connection between these two that is magnetic. Strong start that raised my eyebrows due to my doubts coming in.
What ensues is a rocky reincarnate, all punch and no block brawl. In the HBO telecast, there is a hint at another boxer, Miguel Escobar, and that the winner of this fight will hopefully get to fight him. This really takes the steam out of the opening fight, up to that point I honestly wasn't sure if Gyllenhaal was going to win or not, but that unnecessary add-in blocked the intensity of that scene. Escobar really wanting to fight Hope, challenges him in a mocking way at the post fight press conference and by the logic of this movie, just because he won that fight. The fight made him 42-0, really who wants to fight a 41-0 guy? Billy speaks at a charity that supports orphans, which him and Maureen were growing up. Escobar is in attendance and kind of apologized to Billy for how he acted but Billy just brushes him off, which upsets Escobar and he says some disgracing things about Maureen. Well naturally being boxers, this leads to a battle royal of sorts between Escobar, Hope and their crews. In the process Maureen gets shot and dies.
You may think that is a spoiler but it really isn't, THEY SHOW IT IN THE TRAILER, I know right...stupid. The whole way leading up to that could of been really solid for all I know, but I don't know because whatever dumb executive who made the trailer gave away the emotional climax of the movie. Everything preceding has been a worn narrative throughout the years...with the perfectly loving parents who have the perfect relationship. It would of worked if I didn't know the big event, but the trailer gave it away and I just saw Fuqua amateurishly build to get the emotional return. Looking back on it, that relationship really did work and I don't want to blame the movie, for the misstep of the trailer, so I just upped my rating a little bit after further thought. Adams and Gyllenhaal...sparks fly between the two.
The rest of the movie turns into a tragedy of Hope's life and his fight for custody of his daughter so she doesn't follow in her fathers footsteps of being an orphan. He goes to train at Wills gym and meets the owner Tick (Forest Whitaker). Together they train and fight to get both their lives back on track for the people around them. Really promising stuff and in more talented hands would of worked, but Southpaw stalls to a melodramatic bore in the middle. But wow, I went this long and haven't talked about Gyllenhaal, he was great Not shocking. Not surprising, he was completely lost in this role (which is a good thing) and I forgot it was him, just as what happened in Nightcrawler. Jake Gyllenhaal truly has been the actor of the past 4 years. Then Fuqua almost squishes the enjoyment of the performances out with all to used clichés around every single corner. Since his 2001 Training Day, Fuqua has been hackish and has squandered many promising movies. The narrative is completely by the books here, other than the devastating climatic moment given away before you even got to the theaters, and there are some side stories that go on that are laughable due to the poor misplacement. Supporting characters do things that are so uneven with the character laid out for them. Potential complex characters were given way by temptations of clichés and lesser cinema.
If you go to Southpaw, go searching a character study of Gyllenhaal's Billy Hope, that is the only reward this movie has to offer.
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