The Weinstein Company
Sports movies can be great, and underdog stories are decent too. Even better are stories about athletes with true talent but something holding them back from victory. But it’s not easy to be original; it seems like most sports movies rip off other sports movies, and all boxing ones rip off Rocky. Sometimes though, people don’t even try.
Southpaw stars Jake Gyllenhaal as the aptly named Billy Hope, so named because it’s a stupid name that’s attempting to be evocative of the concept of hope with regards to boxing. Billy is a very successful boxer, the current light heavyweight champion with an absurd record of 43-0. The only problem is his style and his temper. His style is to let himself get hit a lot and eventually rage back into a win. So he’s hurting himself to win.
His wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) is worried about him and manages his career. His daughter Leila (Oona Laurence) is worried too to a lesser extent, and doesn’t want to see her daddy hurt. And his manager Jordan Mains (50 Cent) is a Don King analogue with everything that entails. So far, whatever, it’s all setup. Rachel McAdams and Jake Gyllenhaal are great and they bring life to these tired character types, so you can live through a cliched opening. But then it goes downhill.
After a tragic accident that I don’t care for, essentially implied by the movie that Billy’s temper was the cause, Billy is down and in the worst place of his life. Pushed into it by the machinations of a rival boxer, Billy screws things up further and is out on his own. So what is the next step? If you guessed “He finds an older, wise black mentor to fix his defects” you’ve seen a movie before! In this case it’s former boxer Tick Wills, played by Forest Whitaker. He’s good in the role, but the role is written poorly.
Without spoiling it, I thought the impetus for Billy’s downfall was cliched at best and sexist at worst. What keeps this movie from being a bad movie is the fast pace and the terrific acting. Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams, and Forest Whitaker are completely wasted here. All give very good performances with quite weak material. I could get further into why it’s all not working, but I suppose that would technically spoil things.
Gyllenhaal may be enough to keep your interest, and I would understand that. But compared to his stellar work last year in Nightcrawler, I am just disappointed.
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