Originally developed as an Eminem vehicle, Jake Gyllenhaal takes the lead as Billy Hope, a boxer who struggles to get his life back together in and out of the ring after a death in the family. Training Day and Olympus Has Fallen Director Antoine Fuqua is behind the camera here. Southpaw features a script by first time writer Kurt Sutter and perhaps the final score composed by the late James Horner.
Since the marketing team for this film wasn't concerned about spoilers I won't be either. The trailer did give away a large part of Southpaw's plot including every twist and turn it takes. The death of Rachel McAdam's character is an obvious one. The scene was not nearly as powerful as it should have been because it was prominently displayed in the marketing, as was the court taking away Billy Hope's daughter. Like Billy Hope, this film had the deck stacked against it. It had no tricks up its sleeve to use, the only thing it had going for it was Jake Gyllenhaal's performance. Luckily, he delivered.
I went into this film expecting a great performance by Jake Gyllenhaal and he is undeniably the strongest part of the movie. He's perfectly believable as a boxer as he captures all of the skill, anger, and mannerisms this role required. He can add this to his list of great performances. Rachel McAdams is fine in the film but she isn't in it long enough to say much more than that. Forest Whitaker plays the "Mickey" role in this film. He's good in the movie and is given plenty to do and Forest carries it just fine. Other than Gyllenhaal himself I'd say the next strongest performance is Oona Lauerence who plays Billy Hope's daughter. The child actress carried her own in some very emotional scenes.
Antoine Fuqua is a hit or miss director for me. Looking through his filmography I would say that 2007's Shooter was a boring movie and while I enjoyed the over the top violence in Olympus Has fallen, I thought The Equalizer was needlessly violent. His inspirations are clear in this film and those would be Eninem and the Rocky franchise. He's clearly a fan of the latter as the plot of this film is derived from that of Rocky III and Rocky V. Directors have multiple jobs on a feature and they include getting the best performance possible from his actors, making sure the story works, and seeing to it that it is his vision that we the audience see on the big screen. I don't believe he was firing on all cylinders on Southpaw. The biggest problem with this movie is Kurt Sutter's screenplay. Not only is it riddled with cliches, but it is also filled with plot holes, and worst of all it is predictable. The "villain" of the film is completely underdeveloped. The screenplay tries to beat you over the head with sadness in so many scenes that it ultimately ends up feeling redundant.
From a technical standpoint this was a weak film for the most part. I wasn't crazy about the up close camera during most of the boxing scenes. In the third act of the film Fuqua employs a method that is meant to make the viewer feel like they are in the fight. To be honest it felt more like a first person video game than a movie when he did that. For the most part the boxing scenes, to their credit, felt very authentic. The pace of the film was another problem for me. This is a movie that feels much longer than it actually is. It starts off with such a fast pace that goes slow for such a long time that when it is time for the third act of the film, its jarring. Academy Award winning composer James Horner wrote the score for this film, one of his final scores before his untimely death earlier this year. It represents Gyllenhaal's character as the songs reflect the mood of sadness, anger, and glory.
There are plenty of great sports films out there. The boxing genre in particular can boast such greats such as Rocky, Raging Bull, and The Fighter. Those movies are Oscar movies and Oscar movies all come out around Oscar season, which typically runs from November through to the Oscars. I believe The Weinstein Company, the studio behind the film, would have released this in that season and would have mostly likely pushed Gyllenhaal for best lead actor and pushed Whittaker for best supporting actor if they believed in the quality of this movie. I believe the studio saw this for what it was; a film with great performances and not much else.
3/5
