**Spoiler Alert**
Director: Antoine Fuqua/Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams, Forest Whitaker, Oona Laurence, 50 Cent and Naomie Harris
Antoine Fuqua has never been a subtle director. Most of his movies run on high-octane emotions and can sometimes sacrifice nuance for the sake of sentiment. His new film Southpaw, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a Bronx boxing champion named Billy Hope (yeah, the name isn't exactly subtle either) is no less subtle but it atones for that shortcoming with conviction, terrific performances and inspired fight scenes.
It's difficult to avoid the classic cliches in boxing movies: the fighter who seeks redemption in the ring, or fights to save his family or to stay economic hardships; it seems most boxing films draw from one or several of these tired, familiar plots. The secondary characters are just as familiar; the ragged, boxing gym manager whose dreams of getting a shot at the title are curtailed for one reason or another and the wife or girlfriend who fears for her husband's mental health and would like nothing more than to see him hang up his gloves. It isn't surprising to find the cliches dusted off for another round (pun not intended) in Fuqua's film but what does come as a surprise is how he re-purposes them compellingly.
Billy Hope isn't a bottom of the boxing card chump but a successful light-heavyweight who, with his wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) and his daughter Leila (Oona Laurence) live luxuriously in their New York home. When we first see Billy, he is deliberately taking brutal, repeated head-shots in the ring. His taut, obscenely chiseled frame is a menacing spectacle. But though Billy can mete out severe punishment, he almost relishes the pounding he takes, a la Jake LaMotta. Watching nervously from ringside is Maureen, who shouts encouraging words and the Don King-like Jordan Mains (50 Cent), who often sees Billy as a marketing tool. Just as defeat seems imminent, Billy unleashes a flurry of savage blows and in doing so, he manages to eke out a slim victory.
But in the post-fight media conference, as Billy and his opponent field questions, a prospective challenger, Miguel Escobar (Miguel Gomez), taunts Billy from the crowd; demanding a chance at the title. Billy ignores Miguel and his entourage's baiting. But a little later in the story, after a prestigious fundraiser, Billy, Maureen and their friends pass through the hotel lobby. Waiting for them is Escobar and his entourage, who taunt Billy again but also direct insults at Maureen. Billy retaliates by punching Escobar in the face, which ignites a brawl between the two parties. Gunfire breaks out and in the aftermath, Maureen lies bleeding on the floor. Billy tries desperately to keep Maureen conscious but to no avail.
Following his wife's death, Leila is placed in foster care after a judge decides the fracas casts a dubious light on Billy's fitness as a father. Before he can reclaim custody, he must prove he can be a responsible father. Meanwhile, Billy discovers his finances aren't what they seem. Soon all his home furnishings are sold off and his house goes into foreclosure.
As Billy agonizes over his daughter's situation, he finds his visits to her are supervised and very brief. Billy also finds Leila refuses to speak to him; her anger over her situation is quite palpable. The fact that Billy was a foster child himself growing up makes his emotional stress all the more acute.
Jordan presents Billy with a chance to recover from his economic woes by offering him a three-fight deal. Billy is reluctant to accept, given the danger it presents to his body, which has sustained excessive punishment over his career. The burden of having to prove he can provide financial stability and be a fit father leaves him with few alternatives. He signs the contract but his first fight proves to be a disaster. Still haunted by his wife's death, he finds he is unable to look over at her usual place at ringside for morale support. Billy fights but without his usual animalistic spirit. He loses the fight and the hope of prize money. Worse yet, Jordan informs him the lackluster fight is a breach of contract, which means adverse, legal fallout. The boxing commission decides to suspend Billy for a year; the financial implications of the decision are too much for him to bear.
Fuqua piles on a little too much adversity, which feels like a contrivance, but the narrative momentum remains intact and unaffected.
Still having to prove to the court he has a legitimate job, Billy visits a shabby-looking boxing gym where a trainer and manager named Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker, who almost steals the movie) acts as a guide for poor, disadvantaged kids whose home lives are decidedly bleak. Billy asks Tick for a job and a place to train. When Tick offers a job cleaning the gym, Billy recoils at thought of cleaning toilets. He leaves angrily but returns days later; having reconsidered the position.
Billy begins to annoy Tick by making a habit of showing up to join him at a local watering hole. In conversations, Billy learns about Tick's boxing past; his own pursuit of a top ranking and the unfortunate injury to his eye; administered by a bum fighter that left Tick with a glassy surrogate, whose color contrasts almost grotesquely with its twin.
As Billy proves he can hold down a job at the gym, he is granted more latitude in his visits with his daughter. His reformative behavior earns him the trust of the case worker and the judge.
After Billy fights in a boxing exhibition for a fund-raising event, Jordan approaches him to offer him the chance to fight Miguel Escobar, who reigns as the light-heavyweight champion. Jordan informs Billy he can use his influence to remove the suspension, which would allow him to fight again. Billy accepts but needing an ace trainer to help him defeat Escobar, he approaches Tick, though he is aware of the trainer's policy about not training professionals. In time, Tick relents. Billy's subsequent re-training mimics every regimen previously seen in nearly all the Rocky films, albeit without the signature theme music. And of course this is all prelude to the crux of the narrative and most boxing movies: the big fight.
The film establishes its engaging, dramatic momentum early on and builds on it. As the story charges to its inevitable boxing climax, Fuqua ensures we are deeply invested in the characters. To give cliches a new coat of paint, a storyteller must also give them a new color. Never for a moment do we doubt the story's direction and outcome but the care Fuqua shows for his characters makes it easy to overlook the chestnuts.
Gyllenhaal's impressive physique, which must have taken great effort to define and expand, would be a visual gimmick if his character were nothing but a savage brute. But Gyllenhaal is an actor who knows how to give intensity nuance and character, as he did in Nightcrawlers. His character squints for much of the movie, as if boxing injuries and a metaphorical inability to see his life clearly are debilitative.
Though Gyllenhaal is exceptional, the real delight in this film is Forest Whitaker, which hardly comes as a surprise. From the moment he utters his first lines of dialogue to his last, I wanted to see more of him and learn more about his past. His presence and performance are electrifying and he provides the film a higher gear in which to reach its exciting climax.
Fuqua demonstrates he can make a prize fight a pulse-quickening experience, which isn't easy. Though he is hardly an artist with the camera, he knows how to wield it visually for optimum effect. The blood is kept to a minimum; we hardly need any director to try to outdo Raging Bull.
I came to Southpaw expecting the usual boxing cliches and was hardly surprised to find them but Fuqua, who is very aware of boxing movie tropes, employs them with generous dollops of heart and soul. Is the film an eminent entry into the boxing movie pantheon? Hardly, but the film is as bracing as a real exchange of jabs and hay-makers. It remains that way until the final bell.
