Southpaw

Released:  July 24^th, 2015

Rated:  R

Distributor:  The Weinstein Company

Starring:  Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, Rachel McAdams, Oona Laurence

Directed by:  Antoine Fuqua

Written by:  Kurt Sutter

Personal Bias Alert:  loved Sons of Anarchy, likes boxing movies

5.7 of 10

            What’s so great about Kurt Sutter, who’s previously written for The Shield and created Sons of Anarchy, is that he manages to craft ultra-masculine stories without demeaning women or disregarding his character’s emotions.  Sure, there’s porn stars and hookers and loose women, but when really examined, these characters tend to have families, responsibilities, and fierce wills.  Sons of Anarchy, which centered on a biker gang in California, is an intricate examination on male bonding, one where the relationships became familial and the men comfortably expressed their love for each other.  That might seem incongruous given their leather-clad, tough guy exteriors, but they, and the show, were softies under all the violence and mayhem.  With such a writer behind it, the boxing drama Southpaw should stir up some strong expectations, but it fails to deliver anything as smart or as surprising as Sutter’s previous work.

            This is Sutter’s first foray into movie writing, and the format is, perhaps, not the best fit.  His strengths shine in sprawling complexity, and the two hours he got to work with in Southpaw aren’t well used.  There’s a lack of urgency to this plot, laying out a simple tale of loss and redemption that lacks originality and thematic weight.  The fighting metaphor that goes so hand-in-hand with boxing films needs something more behind it, and this film, quite simply, drops the ball on its secondary plots.  There’s hints of other stories brimming off to the side, like the safe haven building Tick (Forest Whitaker) and the inescapability of one’s background, but none ever become fully examined, feeling more like asides that prop up instead of building on the main storyline.

            The pairing of Sutter with the equally masculinity-focused director Antoine Fuqua was a more troubling prospect, as Fuqua has a rough track record when it comes to the quality of his films.  He struggles with Southpaw, never finding a consistent visual tone and failing to ever provide a break from the dour proceedings.  It’s funny, because he’s clearly done his homework, copying the visual styles from classic boxing movies (the gym scenes pull heavily from the lighting in Million Dollar Baby) but never settles on any one approach.  It gives the film a disjointed feel, moving from the drab cave of the gym to the glaring lights of Madison Square Garden without any sense of comment.  Perhaps if he had crafted the contrast into some meaning it would’ve felt more natural, but this and other inserted visual flairs feel like just that, flair, instead of something to really make note of.

            Much ado has been made about Jake Gyllenhaal’s physical heft as the light heavyweight champ Billy Hope, and his physicality, both in size and in the way he carries himself as the battered boxer, deserves adoration.  The dedication to his gym prep shows, a necessary step to playing a realistic boxer, but it’s that body movement, the shuffling weariness of a person who’s taken a beating, that elevates the performance.  Gyllenhaal is one of the greats when it comes to inhabiting a character, but he’s never overly showy about it, always playing to the strengths of the film and not overstepping into gaudiness.  Playing right along at his level is Rachel McAdams as his wife, Maureen.  She’s a classic Sutter momma, knowing her place when out in the world but fiercely fighting behind the scenes for the man she loves.  McAdams brings her all to the pivotal role, and her commitment and natural interplay with Gyllenhaal is what makes the film work.

            Gyllenhaal sells the hell out of this lightweight film, but its failings show in how drawn out the whole thing feels.  Their either needed to be more to the story or twenty less minutes to the film, because it’s current iteration is too dour to be fun and too empty to be great.  Gyllenhaal and McAdams makes what is there work, though, and that is far from a complete loss.

Other Notes:

Ø  Whitaker and Naomi Harris make for some woefully underused side characters.

Ø  Speaking of Naomi Harris, did I detect a romance between her and Gyllenhaal that was left on the cutting room floor?

Ø  Southpaw:  a left-handed person, especially a boxer who leads with the right hand or a baseball pitcher