'Southpaw' review by Jake Boyle
Man, Jake Gyllenhaal, right? What an actor. Donnie Darko, Nightcrawler...
OK, that's all I've seen him in, but still, those are two phenomenal, brilliant films, and his performance is the most fantastic element of both those masterpieces. As long as his next project was at least vaguely interesting, my attendance was practically guaranteed. Vaguely interesting does seem quite apt for describing Southpaw's allure - boxing drama is territory that is simultaneously well-trodden but open for new interpretations, and director Antoine Fuqua specialises in the realm of 'meh'-tier films, so adding such an accomplished actor into the mix was interesting. Vaguely.
Southpaw is a very familiar tale of fall and redemption, told with just a slightly darker, more emotionally exploratory edge to it. The journey of the protagonist (the laughably named Billy Hope) from success through tragedy to self-acceptance is not just archetypal of sports dramas but cinema in general, and while Gyllenhaal and Forest Whitaker are on hand to lend an additional sense of maturity and pathos, it's still nothing new. Gyllenhaal gives a consummate performance and really shines in some of the low-key scenes wherein he can demonstrate some subtlety in his character's frustration, but given that the man is capable of creating on-screen miracles it's still somewhat disappointing. The reoccurring theme of this movie is the actors outperforming the script, drawing attention to its weaknesses; child actress Oona Laurence emotes and expresses very believably, but the dialogue written for her is so clawingly one-dimensional and robotic that she's clearly been considered a plot device first and a character second. This is true of the majority of the film's supporting characters, who exist solely to motivate Billy, which leads to a worrying reoccurring issue in which characters are killed with very fanfare in order that they might serve their narrative purpose.
In related issues of stilted writing, Lord Almighty did Kurt Sutter (making quite the inauspicious debut as a writer of feature films) phone it in towards the end. The simplistic schmaltz of the film's ending can be forgiven, because there does seem to be an actual sense of heart to it, but there are numerous plotlines and character arcs that all remain unresolved, with no sign that this is intended as a realistic, 'life goes on' conclusion à la Bridge And Tunnel. More obnoxious than anything else is the dialogue of the climactic boxing match's commentators - when they're not recapping the plot of what you've already watched, they're practically instructing the audience how to feel, including one truly barbarous line in which there is an explicit mentioning of the fight's emotional subtext, just in case the audience was incapable of understanding anything that had happened over the previous two hours.
It's not wholly representative that this review mostly focuses on negative aspects of the film, especially the writing; Southpaw is, overall, a decidedly okay and sustainably enjoyable viewing, and for the most part, it is effectively if unambitiously written - it's just that when it does make mistakes, they're pretty monumental errors. Overall, Sutter and Fuqua have made a comfortable film with a few hints of edge to it, and strong performances - even from 50 Cent and especially from Gyllenhaal, making mumbling and sluggishness halfway compelling - both elevate the experience and highlight the inferiorities in its production.
OK, that's all I've seen him in, but still, those are two phenomenal, brilliant films, and his performance is the most fantastic element of both those masterpieces. As long as his next project was at least vaguely interesting, my attendance was practically guaranteed. Vaguely interesting does seem quite apt for describing Southpaw's allure - boxing drama is territory that is simultaneously well-trodden but open for new interpretations, and director Antoine Fuqua specialises in the realm of 'meh'-tier films, so adding such an accomplished actor into the mix was interesting. Vaguely.
Southpaw is a very familiar tale of fall and redemption, told with just a slightly darker, more emotionally exploratory edge to it. The journey of the protagonist (the laughably named Billy Hope) from success through tragedy to self-acceptance is not just archetypal of sports dramas but cinema in general, and while Gyllenhaal and Forest Whitaker are on hand to lend an additional sense of maturity and pathos, it's still nothing new. Gyllenhaal gives a consummate performance and really shines in some of the low-key scenes wherein he can demonstrate some subtlety in his character's frustration, but given that the man is capable of creating on-screen miracles it's still somewhat disappointing. The reoccurring theme of this movie is the actors outperforming the script, drawing attention to its weaknesses; child actress Oona Laurence emotes and expresses very believably, but the dialogue written for her is so clawingly one-dimensional and robotic that she's clearly been considered a plot device first and a character second. This is true of the majority of the film's supporting characters, who exist solely to motivate Billy, which leads to a worrying reoccurring issue in which characters are killed with very fanfare in order that they might serve their narrative purpose.
In related issues of stilted writing, Lord Almighty did Kurt Sutter (making quite the inauspicious debut as a writer of feature films) phone it in towards the end. The simplistic schmaltz of the film's ending can be forgiven, because there does seem to be an actual sense of heart to it, but there are numerous plotlines and character arcs that all remain unresolved, with no sign that this is intended as a realistic, 'life goes on' conclusion à la Bridge And Tunnel. More obnoxious than anything else is the dialogue of the climactic boxing match's commentators - when they're not recapping the plot of what you've already watched, they're practically instructing the audience how to feel, including one truly barbarous line in which there is an explicit mentioning of the fight's emotional subtext, just in case the audience was incapable of understanding anything that had happened over the previous two hours.
It's not wholly representative that this review mostly focuses on negative aspects of the film, especially the writing; Southpaw is, overall, a decidedly okay and sustainably enjoyable viewing, and for the most part, it is effectively if unambitiously written - it's just that when it does make mistakes, they're pretty monumental errors. Overall, Sutter and Fuqua have made a comfortable film with a few hints of edge to it, and strong performances - even from 50 Cent and especially from Gyllenhaal, making mumbling and sluggishness halfway compelling - both elevate the experience and highlight the inferiorities in its production.
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