Beaten Down

Southpaw

My wife and I have been happily together for 8 years and married for almost three. The two of us share a total of three children that are healthy and smart. My wife has been my biggest cheerleader when it comes to my passions in life and sometimes an impromptu editor on some of my reviews. If something unfortunate would have fall on my wife and she was taken away from me, I don’t think that I could ever function normally. However, when tragedy strikes all of us have to find that healthy way of grieving and overcome the heartbreak we all would feel inside; similar to The Weinstein Company’s new film, Southpaw.

Light Heavyweight Champion of the World Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal Nightcrawler) is on top of the world. Hope is undefeated, has a beautiful wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams Aloha), a smart daughter (Oona Laurence), and a life in which he can provide everything his family wants. Though after a charity ball, Hope’s world drastically changes in an instant. While walking out from the ball, Hope is taunted by an up and coming fighter named Miguel Escobar (Miguel Gomez) and an altercation ensues. Gun shots ring out among the crowd and one bullet sadly finds Maureen in the abdomen. Lost without his wife, Hope turns to drugs and alcohol to deal with the loss, though damaging his relationship with everyone around him including his daughter. Soon there is no more money and Hope finds himself at the lowest point in his life. To recover what he has lost inside and his daughter, Hope must now turn to the sport that made him famous and build himself from the ground up.

Though the main point of the film is quite cliché, Southpaw is not your typical boxing/sport kind of movie. This film pulls at the heart strings pretty hard and is more about the personal relationships that we have and the way we all need to deal if life becomes totally unfair. I loved the performances and was even very impressed with how the director handled the material. I think it is safe to say that Southpaw quietly slipped into at least my top 20 of all time (and I don’t even like boxing movies!).

What can I really say about Jake Gyllenhaal? The man is a chameleon and can perform roles with a very high standard. As Billy Hope, Gyllenhaal is able to convey Hope’s inner struggles, not only with the loss of his wife but how he needs to retrain himself as a boxer. I was also captivated by Oona Laurence and her performance as Leila, Hope’s daughter. She had a tough job of being the child, yet showing more maturity than her father in some scenes. Laurence never seems to crack under the pressure of being in some scenes with Gyllenhaal. Though, the most obvious cliché out of this movie comes with Forest Whitaker (The Butler) and his character Tick Wills. Not saying that Whitaker is bad in this film, he just plays the wily veteran boxing trainer that comes out of ‘retirement’ to help the younger boxer relearn a sport Hope already has ‘mastered’. Whitaker makes the character his own by making him a little bit more likable, but still basically the same character in almost every other boxing movie.

Reminding me more of his work on Training Day, Antoine Fuqua has separated himself from most of his other directorial work. Fuqua is more of a high intense action/thriller type director and he more often than not delivers a satisfying movie. With Southpaw, Fuqua relies more on the emotional side of the characters than their physicality. The emotional scenes that Fuqua takes the audience through are some of the best that he has ever done and hopefully builds on those for some other movies he may have coming up.

This isn’t your father’s Rocky-esque boxing movie. Southpaw brings the audience on a more emotional ride than any recent sports movie has. Gyllenhaal is superb yet again in what seems to be a long list of Oscar-worthy performances. I hope he gets noticed this year, especially after that snub last year.

The Verdict: Worth Your Time.