Southpaw
Southpawis a paint by numbers boxing drama kept afloat by good direction and a ferocious Jake Gyllenhaal performance.
Southpawstars Jake Gyllenhaal as Billy Hope , a battler who went from being a tumultuous New York orphan to the undefeated World Light Heavyweight boxing champion , happily married to his childhood sweetheart , Maureen ( Rachel McAdams ) , and living the aspiration lifespan . However , Billy ’s punch - drunk boxing method acting has started to take a bell on him both physically and mentally ; accordingly , when upstart fighter Miguel ' Magic ' Escobar ( Miguel Gomez ) cod Billy outside the ring , the latter take the lure and bugger off into a fist - fight with Miguel that ends in personal tragedy for Billy .
Billy ’s subsequent decline into self - destruction costs him not just his life history and lot , but also run him to lose detainment of his daughter , Leila ( Oona Laurence ) . wait to get his life back on runway , Billy takes a nighttime job at a gymnasium have by the old-hat - professional boxer / boxing coach Titus ' Tick ' Wills ( Forest Whitaker ) , while train there during the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . Together , Billy and Tick facilitate one another in their efforts to find redemption outside ( and just possibly inside ) the mob .
write bySons of Anarchycreator Kurt Sutter , Southpawfeatures a very conventional pugilism dramatic event narrative that derives its game beats and character factor from many , manyfamous cinematic athletics tale that have fare before it . Sutter ’s screenplay , similar to his work onSons of Anarchy , blends onetime - fashioned melodrama with modern grittiness in its testing of the world of professional boxing and the battle of the lower - financial class . The result storyline is under - cooked in terms of character ontogeny and predictable enough that it totter on parody at times ( due to its self - seriousness ) , but it has enough forward momentum and Energy Department to stay upright and not fall in under the weight of its genre clichés .
That ’s in part thanks to Antoine Fuqua , who handles theSouthpawnarrative with a unfluctuating directorial helping hand . Fuqua use the same meticulous visual storytelling access here as he did with his late B - motion-picture show efforts ( Olympus Has Fallen , The Equalizer ) , relying on accurate camera scene slant and light techniques - courtesy of his longtime camera operator Mauro Fiore - to make an effectively down and dirty portrayal of not just living inside the boxing ring , but also the grimy New York street and buildings where most of the moving picture ’s character reside . Southpawis a case of style trumping substance ( even more so than some of Fuqua ’s late B - movies ) , but the style in which Fuqua and his collaborator stage the minutes help to compensate for the narrative shortcoming .
Jake Gyllenhaal ’s execution as Billy Hope ( and yes , characters in the movie do crack jokes about his name ) also help to elevateSouthpawabove being just a hollow sport drama . Gyllenhaal ’s impressive physical transformation away , the type actor keeps his winning streak alert here , with yet another memorable turn as firecracker Billy , transitioning with relief from being a gentle Marlon Brando - esque murmurer to a bawl out brawler , in any give scene . Fuqua , as manager , goes overboard with the gruesome closeups of Gyllenhaal bleeding and/or sweating profusely during his training , but Gyllenhaal ’s raw performance is more successful at sellingSouthpawas the severely - boil tale of buyback it was meant to be .
Gyllenhaal does n’t carrySouthpawon his own , as the rest of the film ’s main cast give the frequently project narrative more striking weighting and genuineness . Rachel McAdams as Billy ’s married woman Maureen does n’t play a huge function in the story , but she present a all right performance as someone who live how to look and represent the role of the friend battler ’s wife in public ( while keep on her concern and headache hidden from the glare ) . Similarly , Forest Whitaker as ' Tick ' is a variation on the archetypical semi - eccentric trainer , but he impregnate the character will genuine humankind and compassion whenever he ’s onscreen . The same go for untested Oona Laurence as Billy ’s girl Leila , who struggle to deal with the sudden onslaught of personal trauma in her animation .
TheSouthpawsupporting mold is under - employ but solid ( on the whole ) and include Naomie Harris ( Skyfall ) as the genial social worker who helps Billy and Leila to repair their human relationship ; Curtis " 50 Cent " Jackson ( Power ) as Billy ’s morally - dubious manager , Jordan Mains ; Skylan Brooks ( The Get Down ) as Hoppy , a young wannabe boxer who facilitate Billy train ( and vice versa ) ; and Miguel Gomez ( The Strain ) as the champion paladin Miguel ' Magic ' Escobar . It ’s potential some of these supporting characters played a larger persona in theSouthpawnarrative at some point in the projection ’s ontogenesis , and that might have give the plot more needed meat on its bone .
Southpawis a paint by number box drama observe afloat by good direction and a furious Jake Gyllenhaal performance , when all is say and done . It ’s a cinema that ’s just as likely to elicit middle - drum roll from certain moviegoers as it is to pull on the heartrings of others , for those same reasonableness . As such , those with a balmy spot for the boxing film literary genre may desire to give this one a look in theater , as it will tally the right notes for them . For other filmgoers , however , Southpawwill likely find like little more than an extra farinaceous recap of theRockyformula .
TRAILER
Southpawis now playing in U.S. theaters . It is 123 arcminute long and is Rated gas constant for oral communication throughout , and some violence .
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Southpaw is a 2015 Drama and Sports film starring Jake Gyllenhaal . lead by Antoine Fuqua and write by Kurt Sutter , the movie chronicle the life and vocation of professional boxer Billy " The Great " Hope . Although he preserve his prevalent life history , people around him begin to worry about his safety in the ring .
Jake Gyllenhaal and Forest Whitaker in ‘Southpaw’
Jake Gyllenhaal and Forest Whitaker in ‘Southpaw’
Jake Gyllenhaal and 50 Cent in ‘Southpaw’
