Boxer Billy Hope turns to trainer Tick Wills to help him get his life
back on track after losing his wife in a tragic accident and his daughter to
child protection services.
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Writer: Kurt Sutter
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal,
Rachel McAdams, Oona
Story line:
As tragedy strikes him in his prime, famed boxer, Billy Hope, begins to
fall into a great depression. Once the decision regarding the custody of his
daughter is under question, Billy decides to get his life back on track by
getting back into the ring.
Box Office:
Budget: $30,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $16,701,294 (USA) (24 July 2015)
Gross: $52,418,902 (USA) (30 October 2015)
Movie Reviews:
Very good tale of redemption with a KO performance
from Jake Gyllenhaal
As with most sports dramas, Southpaw is a film more
about the man than the sport. Labelled by many as the 'modern day Raging Bull',
I had high hopes for Southpaw and thanks to Jake Gyllenhaal, it duly delivered.
This is a tale of one man's path to redemption through boxing.
Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the Light
Heavyweight champion of the world and a boxer known for his unique style and
impressive fight record. When his wife, Maureen (Rachel McAdams), is shot dead
following a scuffle with title contender Miguel Escobar (Miguel Gomez), both
Billy's career and personal life go in a downward spiral that sees him both
lose his boxing licence and his daughter, Leila (Oona Laurence), to child
protection services.
Billy turns to trainer Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker)
to help him get his life back on track. Carry on down the same path and Billy
could lose his daughter forever however, putting his focus into a return to
boxing could see Billy regain everything he lost after the death of his wife.
As mentioned before, the film focuses more on the
man than the sport however, Southpaw is one of the only boxing dramas I have
seen where the sport of boxing actually feels like a character in the film, not
just a backdrop for the drama.
Southpaw does become a bit predictable and features
quite a few clichés, which can't be helped in this genre, but director Antoine
Fuqua does a good job in making sure Southpaw has a bit of a cutting edge to
it. This is a hard hitting drama that isn't scared to throw the hardest of
punches at its audience.
After leaving the cinema, I read that Eminem had
been lined up for the role of Billy Hope when the film first came into
production. How different a film that would have been. I could not be more
thankful that the studio decided not to follow through with that and instead
decided to cast Gyllenhaal in the role instead.
Gyllenhaal is an actor who makes it clear that he
takes his roles very seriously and you can see that from the transformation he
has put his body through, becoming almost unrecognisable from the skinny Lou
Bloom in Nightcrawler. His gruelling six month training regime certainly makes
him look like a boxer but his decision to learn the boxing techniques means he
moves like a boxer too, making the performance even more authentic.
The transformation would mean absolutely nothing
without the performance to match though. As expected, Gyllenhaal gives an
absolute powerhouse of a performance in Southpaw that really raises the quality
of the film because without him, this would be quite an average film. I
struggle to think of an actor right now on a hotter streak in Hollywood than
Gyllenhaal.
Forest Whitaker, as usual, adds a quality to
proceedings and Rachel McAdams does a fine job in her small role, which would
have been better if we hadn't seen her characters outcome in the trailers. Oona
Laurence gives an impressive performance as the young Leila and I didn't even
mind 50 Cent or Rita Ora being cast in the film.
The boxing sequences are very good as well, with
the use of POV shots in particular injecting the sequences with adrenaline and
making the audience feel every single punch thrown.
While Southpaw isn't the masterpiece that Raging
Bull is, it certainly sees Fuqua make his best film since Training Day. Led by
another top performance from Gyllenhaal, maybe Southpaw will make the voters
this awards season stand up and take notice of his talent, not ignore it like
they did with Nightcrawler.
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