Review of Southpaw (2015) by Wade W — 20 Aug 2015

Last year, Jake Gyllenhaal starred in the film, Nightcrawler. Not only was it one of the best films of 2014, it was arguably one of Gyllenhaal's best performances. In this film, Gyllenhaal teams up with director Antoine Fuqua in this wrestling drama. "Southpaw" is directed by Antoine Fuqua. The cast includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, and Rachel McAdams.

Billy Hope (Gyllenhaal) is a famous boxer living with his wife and child in New York City. During a bloody fight, Billy gets pummeled by his opponent. He ultimately wins the fight, but just barely. His wife, Maureen (McAdams), urges Billy to stop wrestling, at least for a while. One night at a fund raiser, a fight breaks out between Billy and a rival. In a tragic accident, Billy's wife is killed, leaving he and his daughter alone. Billy begins abusing alcohol and drugs, but he decides to sign a new contract. After attacking a referee out of frustration in the wake of losing a fight, Billy is suspended and left indebted, leading to his house and belongings being repossessed. He continues to spiral out of control and nearly dies after crashing his car while driving intoxicated, which also causes him to lose custody of daughter Leila, who is put under care of Child Protective Services. The incident drives Billy to become sober, but Leila cuts ties with him, blaming him for their predicament.

Over the years we've seen many wrestling films. The most popular are arguably, Rocky and Raging Bull. In 2008, another great wrestling film surfaced; David O. Russell's, The Fighter. Unfortunately, this film doesn't produce anything new. It does however have an extremely powerful central performance. Gyllenhaal was fantastic in this film, bringing both extreme emotion and rage to the role. The rest of the cast and characters unfortunately don't leave much of an impression. However, I thought Forest Whitaker's presence in the film was very welcoming. The relationship between their two characters is a bit rushed, but once they get together it's a pretty great dynamic.

It must be said, this film is not quite what I hoped. It is unfortunately, generic at times. As previously stated, there have been many wrestling pictures over the decades. It's very hard to make a refreshing and unique wrestling film that isn't generic. As an example, Foxcatcher directed by Bennett Miller. It was a brilliant, brilliant film. Allot of it had to do with the basis of the story. It was based on a true story-the Du Pont scandal-and featured amazing performances from Steve Carrell and others. Another example of a fresh wrestling drama is David O. Russell's film, The Fighter. Once again, it was a fresh film. This film is like Rocky meets The Fighter. It is incredibly generic and very, very predictable. There are no surprises whatsoever, except for the father and daughter drama, which in the end saves the film. This is the best element of the film, and gives the film an emotional edge.

"Southpaw" is one of those films that really stumbles along it's way. It doesn't quite know what it's trying to be. It makes the mistake of coping other wrestling films-which is an easy thing to do-and doesn't offer much of anything new to the genre. However, Jake Gyllenhaal's tense and emotional performance adds to the film greatly. Forest Whitaker and Gyllenhaal have good chemistry, and the father daughter dynamic adds something of an emotional feel, despite the fact that it does come off as manipulative at times.