SOUTHPAW Review: Timing is Everything

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Southpaw Review posterLet’s face it: boxing movies are all about the final big match. Everything that happens up to that point is there just to build tension. So ultimately, if that last match delivers suspense, excitement and impact, the film can be considered a success, right?

Well, not so much. While Southpaw is punctuated with brutally and effectively choreographed fight scenes and superb acting from Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker and Rachel McAdams, the script is so cliche and unbelievable that you feel these actors are wasted, and can’t help but wonder if they read the whole thing before they signed on.

Now I do like the fact that the film starts with the boxer at the height of his career. Billy “The Great” Hope (Gyllenhaal) appears to have it all: a freshly won national title, a gorgeous wife and adorable daughter, a huge mansion and the prerequisite posse of hangers on. So we’re spared the time worn meat-punching, stair-running conditioning montages of the hungry young kid trying to make a name for himself…so far.

The day after Billy wins his title (and presumably the millions that go with it), tragedy strikes, and not only is his family ripped asunder, but he’s informed he will lose everything unless he signs a new contract with HBO and fights again in the next few weeks. This is when the film becomes the boxing equivalent of a legal drama on TV. You know how on, say, The Good Wife, hearings  happen within a few hours hours of a complaint being filed, and the trial begins the next day? If the Pacquiao vs. Mayweather debacle taught us anything, it’s that these major fights take months, sometimes years to build, and that win or lose, both fighters come away with an obscene amount of money. So where does all that money go, and how does Billy lose his fortune, family and career in little more than a month? Why couldn’t the script have provided for a more believable time line? It’s not like the audience is watching in real time.

Then they throw in the down-and-out-trainer, a distraught, tearful child, the tragic death of an innocent, and an out of shape boxer trying to claw his way back up to the top. Cue the crash conditioning montage. Haven’t we seen this all in every boxing movie that’s ever been made? I expected so much more from director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer) and his extraordinary cast.

If the movie on the whole were better, Gyllenhaal might expect to an award nomination or two. But as is, it’s not much more than a passable way for boxing fans to get their fix while waiting for the next big HBO title bout.

Rated R

2 Hours 3 Minutes

Get times and tickets at Fandango.com.

https://youtu.be/sZdoeExN1xk

SOUTHPAW Review: Timing is Everything

 

 

 

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Lisa Johnson Mandell

Lisa Johnson Mandell is an award winning journalist, author and film/TV critic. She can be heard regularly on Cumulus radio stations throughout the US, and seen on Rotten Tomatoes. She is the author of three bestselling books, and spends as much of her free time as possible with her husband Jim and her jolly therapy Labradoodle Frankie Feldman.

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