The Blabbering Inferno: SOUTHPAW. REVIEWED.

Southpaw (2015)

Rating- 15

Running Time- 2 hours 4 minutes

Directed by- Antoine Fuqua

Written by- Kurt Sutter

A film about a boxer at the top of his profession who loses his success in spectacular fashion only to slowly fight his way back to the top hardy sounds like an original concept and in truth Southpaw isn’t a film that smacks of originality but it still manages to stay entertaining throughout.

Fresh from his most recent defence of his light-heavyweight title, Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) is on top of the world. His wife Maureen’s (Rachel McAdams) attempts to keep him grounded seem to be working until an altercation with would-be-title-challenger Miguel Escobar (Miguel Gomez) ends in her accidental death. This triggers a downward emotional spiral for Billy, one that sees him lose everything he cares about and any chance of recovery seems almost impossible.

The film starts in great fashion. Not only is it fast-paced and entertaining but it also establishes the main characters well in the process. The film then coasts off this initial energy up until the point of Billy’s fall from grace. This period of the film is captivating to watch but reaches a point that you start to think that if this carries on for much longer it will become too depressing to remain entertaining. Fortunately, before it crosses that threshold, the film takes a turn that provides a much needed pick up.

This turning point is triggered through the introduction of Forest Whittaker who puts in an unsurprisingly great performance as veteran coach and former boxer Tick Wills. But, the positive turning point his introduction sparks coincides with the film sliding into cliché and everything from that point becomes predictable. It wasn’t as if everything that came before that was wildly unpredictable but the potential was still there for something unexpected to happen up until this moment. The performance of Whittaker and particularly Gyllenhaal, who gets better and better with each film he stars in, keep the film captivating through this last leg of the film through and it probably finishes in as much of an uplifting way as it can considering the dark, depressing nature of the events of the second act.

It’s a film that takes the stereotypical redemption story and sets it to the unoriginal backdrop of boxing but is still entertaining mostly due to the brilliant acting; it surely confirms Gyllenhaal as one of the best actors of this generation. All in all, an entertaining retelling of a story we have seen before.