Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal is the through line character with people like Rachel McAdams, Forrest Whitaker, 50 Cent, and Naomi Harris showing up for parts. Oona Laurence fills the cute kid role.
Plot: Billy Hope (Gyllenhaal) is a champion lightweight boxer. One day, he gets in a brawl with another boxer (Miguel Gomez) and his wife (McAdams) ends up dead. He spirals out of control, then works to put his life together. (Note: I'm only spoiling what the trailer already does)
Thoughts:
This is a referendum on Jake Gyllenhaal first and foremost. Southpaw isn't a good movie with a strong lead performance. It's a strong lead performance with an OK movie. If you don't like what Gyllenhaal is doing, then it's going to be a long two hours. Luckily, he's very good. Not Nightcrawler level. Expecting that would be greedy.
I'm not sure how this movie could be more familiar and predictable than it already is. It's like they rolled every Rocky movie into one and then took away his kid (Laurence) for a while. The story simply goes in every direction I expected it to. At no point is there a surprising decision and it is riddled with cases of showing instead of telling. Don't worry about missing a thematic element, because as it's happening, someone will comment on it.
There's too much story as well. The arc is too big and the focus too scattered. There's establishing Billy's relationship with his wife enough for it to matter when she dies, his downward spiral, his posse and manager leaving him, the litigation for custody of his daughter, the career redemption story, learning to be a more responsible man. Many of these things are tied together, sure. But, this many years after Rocky and Raging Bull and Ali and Cinderella Man and The Fighter, you really have to pick a focus to be memorable.
That's not to say this isn't without its small charms. Gyllenhaal, as I mentioned is very good and ably holds up the movie most of the time. McAdams is much better than what was on the page for her (The fact that I cared at all for her by the time she dies early on is remarkable). Except for a couple annoying reminders that he's the "bad guy", the movie doesn't make the rival boxer antagonist into a monster. He's a loud-mouthed competitor, which is only natural, but he gets a few grace moments that prove that he's as respectable a guy as Gyllenhaal. In fact, I would've loved to see a version of the movie that was more about that rivalry.
Elephant in the Room: How's the boxing though? It's kinetic enough. Anthony Fuqua has an interest in being as close as he can to the fighting. It isn't very consistent though. There's a change in how the fighting is shown that is less about showing and evolution in Hope's style and more about "let's try this now". Especially at the end, the fighting moves into a silly "video game" style of intensity that got in the way of my appreciation of it.
To Sum Things Up (In 57 Words or Less):
Jake Gyllenhaal holds this narratively and thematically scattered movie together as well as possible. There's genuine moments of heart and excitement that don't come often enough to make up for how much of the movie drags. I can only recommend it to the most diehard boxing movie or Jake Gyllenhaal fans.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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