Jake Gyllenhaal gives a committed performance as a boxer trying to fight back after hitting rock bottom. But Southpaw is held back by a storyline that can't get off the ropes, and relationships that never fully connect.
Billy Hope (Gyllenhaal) survives an orphanage in Hell's Kitchen and a few stints in juvie to become a 43-0 light heavyweight champion fighter, complete with sprawling mansion and loyal hangers-on. But his wife (Rachel McAdams) worries that he's a few fights away from being permanently punch-drunk, and judging by Gyllenhaal's mumbling, she's probably right.
His money-grubbing manager (50 Cent) keeps seducing Billy with the false mantra "it's all about family" and before any sensible decisions can be made tragedy strikes; Billy finds himself on a self-destructive path that tanks his career, his life savings and his relationship with the couple's 10-year-old daughter (Oona Laurence).
The now ex-champ takes a job at an inner-city gym run by Tick Willis (Forest Whitaker) who has inexplicably sworn off training professional fighters. Tick doesn't abide cursing or boozing around his gym but partakes heavily of both when he's off duty, the reason for which is never revealed. (What makes Tick tick is the game of the day.) Tick delivers a terrible, drunken motivational speech to Billy in a bar, but it's enough for a light bulb to go off in the fighter's thick head.
Cue the Rocky theme, or in this case, one of several Eminem anthems. Hoping to win back custody of his daughter, Billy cleans up his act and finally takes off that hoodie, showing off Gyllenhaal's tattooed, glistening and very un-Nightcrawler physique. Tick gives Billy a whole new set of skills with which to pummel people — including the secret weapon of the title — and Billy has some very personal reasons for wanting to see a trash-talking Miguel Escobar (Miguel Gomez) go down.
The fight choreography is on the nose: realistic, not overlong, and seen at one point from an entirely new perspective as actors give the cameras a beating. The messiness of MMA fighting makes us yearn for the discipline offered by boxing, and as a boxing movie Southpaw holds up against The Fighter and Million Dollar Baby. As a character study, however, the film (directed by Training Day's Antoine Fuqua, written by Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter) suffers a one-two punch from its predictable redemption story arc and from the lack of chemistry between Billy and everyone around him.
A hasty and disappointing ending is devoid of a showdown between Billy and his manager, a scene which might have given the film its lone stand-up-and-cheer moment. And despite a champion effort by Gyllenhaal, Southpaw sorely needed one.
Southpaw is at Scotiabank.
