Review of Southpaw (2015) by Dawdlingpoet — 22 Nov 2021

This is an action sports related drama film. It covers themes including wrecklessness and desperation.Its quite a powerful drama, which is rather emotional at times. Its clear to see how tired and yet determined Billy is, with his wife being clearly genuinely worried for his health. Ok so its all been done before as far as films about boxers is concerned you could say and you'd be right but I felt the performances were believable and thus convincing enough for this not to matter as much as it potentially could have. There was a definite feeling of hopelessness present - I found myself feeling quite emotionally attached to both Billy, his wife Maureen and his daughter, Leila.

This film is quite moving and thought provoking - it seemed a bit better than your, perhaps 'regular'/run of the mill style sports dramas. However, there is an element of cheese and sentimentality that comes through, although I suppose thats to be expected given the genres involved but I would reassure you by saying that its not entirely overbearing.

There is a great cast present in this film, from Jake Gyllenhaal as Billy (a headstrong, determined yet also clearly flawed in some respects, boxer, husband and father) to Rachel McAdams, as the concerned wife, wanting whats best for her family, Forest Whitaker who plays Tick Wills (a boxing manager) and even the hip-hop superstar 50 Cent, aka Curtis Jackson, who plays Jordan Mains, who works alongside Billy. Oona Laurence plays Billys daughter, Leila and she gave a pretty captivating performance with one particular scene standing out in my mind.

Tone wise, its tense and gripping from relatively early on and certainly within the first half hour (it has a running time of one hour and 58 minutes, for the record). I thought it was quite atmospheric and engrossing thanks, in part, to the regular changes of camera angles giving more of an immersive feel to it, providing I suppose slightly different perspectives on events both in and out of the ring. It also features a satisfyingly tense and haunting, mostly instrumental style, soundtrack.

Content wise, this film contains strong language and some moderate violence (quite bloody at times, understandably so given the plot) plus some partial nudity, although nothing especially graphic or extreme. For instance, men shown boxing in the ring are topless, as would be expected pretty much. The film carries a 15 rating to reflect this.

Yes I'd recommend this film as I felt it was quite gripping, engrossing and featured good, quality performances. It is a somewhat moving, emotional film, although it isn't exactly entirely original, as far as the plot is concerned and it could be seen as a little bit cheesy, which may put people off but overall its a pretty decent film, so I'd recommend it as such.