![\"southpaw](\"http:\/\/behindthelensonline.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/southpaw-3.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBilly \u201cThe Great\u201d Hope has clawed and pummeled his way from the foster care system in Hell\u2019s Kitchen to become a light heavyweight boxing champ.\u00a0 Growing up in poverty and uncertainty, he appreciates the luxury and gifts that his boxing skills have now given him as an adult – loving wife Maureen, the oh-so-precocious-and-adorable daughter Leila, a nice home, fancy cars, money in the bank, and a chance to give back to the foster care system.<\/p>\n
While Billy, and his manager Jordan Mains, want to keep on going at breakneck speed racking up the wins, titles and money, Maureen is the one who sees the handwriting on the wall.\u00a0 She sees the physical toll that Billy\u2019s no-holds barred, street fighting style has taken on him; particularly, with his most recent fight.\u00a0 The body is bruised and battered, the left eye in jeopardy.\u00a0 Using the excuse of taking more time for the family rather than show any worry to Billy, Maureen puts the kibosh on a contract for a trio of bouts with a $30 million purse, much to Jordan\u2019s dismay.<\/p>\n
Still recovering from his latest fight, Billy and Maureen head out to a charity event only to be confronted by boxing rival Miguel Escobar who trash talks almost verbatim along the lines of Clubber Lang a la \u201cRocky 3″.\u00a0 Push comes to shove when the trash is about Maureen and then disaster happens, spiraling Billy into a pit of despair, anger, drugs and alcohol; costing him his daughter, his titles, his home, his money, his manager and his self-respect.<\/p>\n But, as with any great fighter, Billy knows what he must do.\u00a0 The bell hasn\u2019t rung on the final round of life yet and he determines to get back custody of Leila and win back her love and respect.\u00a0 Turning to Tick Willis, former boxer turned gym owner and trainer for young kids to keep them off the streets, Billy is forced into menial labor cleaning toilets, mopping floors, needing to earn Tick\u2019s respect before he can set foot into any ring.\u00a0 With nowhere to go but up, can Billy put aside his pride and learn there\u2019s more to life than bloodsport, there\u2019s discipline, technique and self-worth in, and out, of the ring.<\/p>\n Clearly influenced by Sylvester Stallone’s punch drunk performance in \u201cRocky 5″ with head injuries, slurring of words, “mentally irregular” thoughts, Jake Gyllenhaal blows the roof off the ring as Billy Hope.\u00a0 What a performance!\u00a0 If the Academy overlooks Jake yet again (Let\u2019s face it.\u00a0 He deserved an Oscar nom for \u201c\u201dNightcrawler\u201d.), they should all be knocked out cold.\u00a0 Gyllenhaal once again transforms and embodies not only the physicality and appearance of his character, but the very essence.\u00a0 There is not a shred of evidence that Jake Gyllenhaal even exists in the man we see on screen.\u00a0 The voice and slurring of words is frightening.\u00a0 The continual spitting up of blood even after the fights, take the mind in various frightening directions.\u00a0 We feel the pain.\u00a0 We cringe at the pain.\u00a0 Where there’s Jake Gyllenhaal, there’s Hope!<\/p>\n Forest Whitaker’s Tick is the warm father figure that Billy never had.\u00a0 You love Whitaker from the start.\u00a0 He embraces that fatherly role not only in Tick’s relationship with Billy, but in the way he cares about all the kids in the gym.\u00a0 He gives guidance and purpose and protection.\u00a0 Kudos to scribe Kurt Sutter for drawing a beautiful metaphoric parallel between Billy and Leila.\u00a0 Where Tick knows it takes more than love to be a father, Billy doesn’t.\u00a0 Watching these two paths play out alongside each other just adds depth to the emotional transformation of Billy.\u00a0 Scenes between Whitaker and Gyllenhaal are touching and poignant.<\/p>\n Rachel McAdams digs deep and comes up a brilliant sparkling diamond as Maureen.\u00a0 Only other person I can even see tackling the tempered nuance and depth for the role would be Elizabeth Banks.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s Curtis \u201c50 Cent\u201d Jackson.\u00a0 Perfectly cast.\u00a0 Jackson just keeps getting better with every film.\u00a0 As Jordan Mains he keeps you guessing; you suspect there’s more than meets the eye, especially with the way Mains harps on the $30 million contract he wants Billy to take that Maureen said no to.\u00a0 Jackson is rapier with an edgy angel\/devil approach of facial and vocal intonations that makes you wonder if Jordan wasn\u2019t part of the melee that resulted in the tragedy at the benefit.\u00a0 The very nature of the way Sutter wrote Jordan and the way Jackson plays him creates various scenarios as the film takes shape.<\/p>\n Nice little cameo from Victor Ortiz as sparring partner and man in Billy’s corner for the final fight. I really took a shine to Skylan Brooks as Hoppy, a young teen being mentored by Tick.\u00a0 A likeable eager kid.\u00a0 I wish his role had been more expanded and with greater significance to the overall plotline because as it is, it’s very disposable.\u00a0\u00a0 And a very likeable and precocious performance comes from Oona Laurence. She’s a got a big career ahead of her.\u00a0 Quite honestly, I can’t wait to see her in “Pete’s Dragon”!\u00a0\u00a0 But did they have to cast Jim Lampley as the ring announcer?\u00a0 *shaking head*<\/p>\n Beyond Gyllenhaal\u2019s performance, \u201cSouthpaw\u201d soars with its cinematography courtesy of Mauro Fiore.\u00a0 I am beyond thrilled and in awe of what Fiore and director Fuqua deliver in the boxing sequences, particularly the final bout in Vegas and the 11th and 12th rounds.\u00a0 Eye level Go-Pro in-your-face-shots are killer!\u00a0 Talk about immersing the audience in the heat of the moment!\u00a0 While I know that Fuqua was\/is a boxer, I am curious as to the boxing trainer and choreographer in the mix.\u00a0 These bouts are as action packed and tension filled as an Ali-Frazier title match!\u00a0 Those two rounds alone left me breathless.<\/p>\n Love the desaturation of Tick’s gym, the gentle beauty of Leila’s bedroom, the bright white clarity of the Hope pool the morning after the fight – great visual metaphor for seeing things clearly, which is countered by the still fuzziness of Billy’s brain after the fight.\u00a0 Vegas is rich, saturated.\u00a0 Also noticeable is that as Billy’s training intensifies, more light filters into the scene akin to his mind is getting clearer.\u00a0\u00a0 Lighting and lensing is outstanding, adding layers of story solely on the excellence of the cinematography.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the script.\u00a0\u00a0 My guess is that screenwriter Kurt Sutter is a big fan of the \u201cRocky\u201d franchise as so much of \u201cSouthpaw\u201d looks, sounds and feels as if lifted right out of specific scenes from \u201cRocky\u201d 3, 4 and 5, and a little bit of the original.\u00a0\u00a0 And not that there’s anything wrong with that.\u00a0 It provides great touchstones and cliches:\u00a0 Fighter at the top of his game; wife wants him out; tragedy strikes; fighter can\u2019t recover; child suffers from neglect of boxing father.\u00a0 Character of Miguel Escobar is equivalent to Rocky’s Clubber Lang, even so far as to have the taunting dialogue about “being a real man, having a real man”.\u00a0 Tick Willis feels like a blend of \u201cRocky’s\u201d Mickey and Apollo Creed.\u00a0\u00a0 Comeback is in Vegas.\u00a0 Quiet, strong, fans behind him – just like Rocky in \u201cRocky Balboa.\u201d\u00a0 And of course, the physical injury to Billy – the eye, the left eye, no less.\u00a0 Same eye Rocky had a problem with that was one of the reasons he couldn’t fight anymore.\u00a0 And then we have gifts of watches to assistants and associates and the watch becomes significant with the monetary losses.\u00a0 Ah, yes,\u00a0 being broke.\u00a0 Rocky lost everything in \u201cRocky 5″ thanks to Paulie’s giving away power of attorney and blindly signing contracts while Rocky was in USSR fighting; mansion, cars, auction.\u00a0 Lensing in \u201cSouthpaw\u201d depicting the mansion foreclosure, repossession and auction appears virtually shot for shot from \u201cRocky 5″.\u00a0\u00a0 Completing the comparison is the ultimate training montage complete with edits between Billy training and Miguel training.\u00a0 And for just one more similarity, when Rocky loses everything, he goes back to carrying buckets at Mickey’s gym, and here, Billy does the same for Tick.\u00a0 But yes, I am loving every second of the mirror similarities on every level.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n