At no time will you mistake Southpaw for Rocky. Forget Raging Bull. It’s certainly no Nightcrawler, which contained a masterful Jake Gyllenhaal. Southpaw confounds, gives occasional reason for praise one minute, then slugs itself in the foot just as quickly. Gyllenhaal’s duke-it-out, hardscrabble performance here is the reason to see this movie. However, you’ll want to take on the chin director Antoine Fuqua’s cookie-cutter, toothless approach. If cliches were jabs, the punch count in Southpaw would be near record-setting.
Billy Hope (Gyllenhaal) is the kind of boxer known for taking a punch, or actually taking far too many punches. Nonetheless, he’s a light heavyweight champion, albeit one who can barely walk after his latest bout. Mentally, he’s not too well, either, although it’s not made clear whether that’s from brain damage, an innate condition, or a combination. His wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) handles the important decisions and business details in the family. Billy’s close to his 10-year-old daughter Leila (Oona Laurence), seems to be an affectionate husband, and has a nasty temper, especially when a certain Latino contender, “Magic” Escobar (Miguel Gomez), incessantly taunts him.
It never once occurs to screenwriter Kurt Sutter to revisit let alone explain a misfortunate accident. The identity of its perpetrators remains fuzzy at best, the incident swept under the rug. One assumes more details would likely lead to even less plausibility. Oh well: here’s Forest Whitaker as some grumpy trainer named Tick, who shapes young kids at a boxing gym and professes never to train professionals. Since Billy by now has fallen on hard times he agrees to begin redeeming himself by scrubbing the place after hours.
Tick eventually agrees to train Billy, takes on his boxing style or the lack of it and drills Billy on a predominantly defensive style. There’s some mumbo jumbo about Billy confusing opponents by changing hands and thus the “Southpaw” title. A good James Horner score and a new Eminem track help things out and the fight scenes seem fairly real. Throughout Billy still has a tattoo with his daughter’s name and birthdate and a burning will to make good with not just her but also the gods of justice. After all, Latino Escobar represents nasty fate. Billy’s thirst for revenge might be all too obvious but Fuqua does us no favors by arriving at a predictable place. In the end, I felt suckerpunched by a lack of imagination.