Written by: Kurt Sutter
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, Naomie Harris, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Oona Laurence
Rating: [4/5]
No other sport quite knows how to break athletes down to their core in order to inspire a comeback than boxing. An individual sport requires so much discipline and grit that it operates as organized violence. The effectiveness of the movies with this sport comes from hitting all of the right notes in the stories, which Southpaw does but when it hits the right notes, it absolutely soars.
Undefeated boxer, Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) receives a plea from his wife, Maureen (Rachel McAdams) to hang up his boots for the sake of his health. At a charity event, another boxer antagonizes Hope and in the rummage, Maureen gets shot and dies. With the pain of losing her, Billy spirals and threatens to lose everything he has left, including his daughter.
Boxing films typically carry a familiar formula in the way they frame the stories where from the onset you can pretty much map every beat of the story. This can certainly be said about most sports stories, but the stand-out moments need to hit. The fall to the bottom and rise to the top must hurt and swell in the same way these boxers feel when they take an uppercut. Knowing these individuals put their bodies on the line every time they step out there, which could be their last match or day on Earth dependent on how the fight goes really allows for these emotional moments to spike and Southpaw manages these moments quite well.
The downward spiral of Billy’s life really displays the truth about those who stick with you when the going gets rough. Billy completely loses sight of everything leading him to lose everything, which really shows how someone with that much success did not budget well seeing as the slightest lapse in income could cause financial destitution of that level. Billy loses his house, possessions, and because of his erratic behavior, his daughter as well. He starts at square one again, causing him to humbly build it all again.
This journey back toward the top requires him to go back to the basics and ask for help when everything he has become accustomed to has dissipated right before his eyes. So much of the inspiration from this feature comes from this journey back to the top. Billy begins to have trouble with all of the damage he has sustained in his career along with the recent drug use from coping with Maureen’s death makes the prospect that much more difficult. It allows for wonderful montages of him getting back into shape through the unorthodox ways of his new trainer Tick Willis (Forest Whitaker) making for a foundational relationship for him.
Though the boxing brings the inspirational moments of the feature, the heart lies with Billy’s relationship with his daughter fractured after his spiral has Child Protective Services take custody of her. Where their relationship descends to really breaks your heart to see and Billy knows he needs to do plenty to make up for what he has put his poor daughter through. Definitely does not come easy for him, but it fits right in line with what this journey means for him and what he needs to do in order for it all to come together.
With the physicality needed for this role, Jake Gyllenhaal brings all of the necessary elements to sell him working as a boxer. He certainly put on the necessary amount of muscle and gives another strong performance, which truly cannot be that surprising for an actor of his stature. He handles the emotional scenes incredibly to capture the moments of pain this character goes through and the struggle he undertakes. You can really see it through his expressions and the moment where Billy loses Maureen it becomes quite evident the pain it causes him. Truly a heartbreaking moment, which makes the journey back towards the top all that much more gratifying to watch occur.
Delivering yet another strong directorial effort, Antoine Fuqua just sits around and brings one strong film after another and this one certainly befits his filmography. In this feature, he takes his talents to the boxing world and while he does not necessarily film the fight sequences as well as other directors have managed, he excels in selling Billy’s journey and the trajectory needed to turn everything around and make a discernible difference in his life. In this way, Fuqua crafts a story that becomes more than the sport itself but a man needing to get himself together, mourn for his wife, and win his daughter back. It carries power and helps this feature thrive.
Very entertaining to watch and hits every emotional beat it should hit, Southpaw lands on most of its punches and serves as quite the knockout of a film. It certainly follows the boxing film formula but ensures it delivers a story worth watching allowing us to go on this journey with Billy in redemption in the sporting arena but also a father.
Films with Josh 
