Review of Southpaw (2015) by Spangle — 20 Jan 2016

Is Southpaw cliched and generic? Yes. It is your typical boxing movie. If you do not like boxing movies and sports movies in general, you will not like Southpaw. However, though I find the sports cliches boring, I do greatly enjoy boxing movies and Southpaw is no exception.

A brilliant blending of the boxing subgenre and melodrama, Southpaw effectively provokes your emotions throughout and really gets you going. Honestly, I felt like I wanted to go out and box somebody after watching this film, which is a great feeling.

Though generic, Southpaw has a really great cinematic quality to it that I can only describe as "movie magic". It really lights a fire under you and inspires you to get on out there. However, it is imperfect.

Aside from being cliched, Southpaw hints at some other subplots that it never really explores, making you wonder why the heck they were there to begin with. Fortunately, the direction from Antoine Fuqua is electric and really picks up where the script slacks off and, even better, Jake Gyllenhaal is phenomenal.

Honestly, in a career full of great performances, this has to be up there for him. He is truly entrancing as Billy Hope and really captures the true essence of the character perfectly. You are rooting for him at the same time you recognize that he is incredibly troubled.

Forest Whitaker is also very good here. Overall, Southpaw is your stereotypical boxing movie, but I happen to like boxing movies, so I really liked it even if it is cliche.