Southpaw

Plot

Billy Hope is a prize winning boxer, who has crawled from the rough streets of Hells Kitchen to become one of the most successful fighters in his division, with a beautiful wife Maureen, a lovely ten year old daughter Leila, and a stunning home.

When his wife is killed in a tragic accident, he spirals out of control – learns of his financial struggles, and loses his daughter to CPS after a drunken mistake. Now bottomed out, he asks a neighbourhood coach, Titus ‘Tick’ Willis, to get him back to the top.

Direction

Antoine Fuqua once again relies heavily on his own ‘culture’ here, and as neither American or of his nationality I found it hard to relate to these characters.

There were some extreme close up shots that worked at times, and also many moments of the sport of boxing shown on screen.

Cast/Characters

Jake Gyllenhaal gives it his all as Billy, and does a solid job. He is believable as the guy born in the ‘tough side of the street’ trying to do the right thing by his family.

Rachel McAdams and Curtis Jackson both have supporting roles, McAdams as Billy’s wife, and Jackson as his coach at the start of the film, and then his rivals coach at the end. Jackson’s role is bookended in the film, while McAdams only appears in the first half-hour.

Forrest Whitaker does not appear until almost half way through proceedings, and does a solid job when he is there.

Screenplay/Setting/Themes

From Kurt Sutter, of Sons of Anarchy fame, I didn’t overly love this one. I found the pacing completely off, with McAdams character killed off almost half an hour into the film. It then takes another half an hour for Billy to; spiral, lose custody in a courtroom scene, and find Whitakers’. His 180 into getting better takes almost no time at all as well.

The way Maureen is killed felt a little strange too, getting hit by a bullet during a scuffle between Billy and a rival; Billy’s financial issues – which see him lose his house, comes out of nowhere. I just did not buy that he would bottom out that fast that quick.

Willis also arrogantly announces that he ‘doesn’t drink’ then is seen drinking at a bar minutes later, and it is never mentioned again.

There is also a strange throwaway line that announces a character that was barely on screen for five minutes has been killed protecting his mother from his father – and also never mentioned again. These all felt as if they were manipulating emotion, but none of it really worked well enough.

Score/Soundtrack

There are a few ‘culturally significant’ songs in the soundtrack that are okay from the point of view of the director, and it seems that this is a trademark of director Fuqua. Eminem also has a couple of songs in the soundtrack as he was the first choice to play the lead.

This would be James Horner’s final film as Composer.

Overall

I had such high hopes for this film, but with so many cliché’s thrown in, and storypoints added clunkily – I did not enjoy this. There were just too many moments that I felt they threw in just to be more dramatic, and it didn’t work for me.

3/5