SOUTHPAW (Antoine Fuqua) 124 minutes. Opens Friday (July 24). See listings. Rating: NN
Where to watch: iTunes
Southpaw plays like something screenwriter Kurt Sutter pounded out after a Rocky boxed-set marathon. Jake Gyllenhaal’s champion prizefighter, Billy Hope, loses everything – including custody of his young daughter (Oona Laurence) – after a personal tragedy and turns to a world-weary trainer (Forest Whitaker) for a fresh start.
Plot-wise, it’s a mess. Sutter (Sons Of Anarchy) crams what feels like three seasons of Billy’s riches-to-rags drama into a two-hour feature, and director Antoine Fuqua (The Equalizer) introduces each new melodramatic complication with sledgehammer force.
But Gyllenhaal is fantastic, squeezing emotional reality out of every cliché he’s handed and turning every scene into wrenching, immediate drama. Southpaw may be preposterous, but Billy Hope is the real deal.
See our interview with Jake Gyllenhaal here.
