Southpaw

[baal666]

Before the movie :

Been long time since the last movie review and i'm a bit late for this movie, planned to see it for a while but didn't have time until today. As often i didn't watch the trailers before the movie but i watched it after because a friend of mine told me it gave away a lot of things.
Written by Kurt Sutter, Directed by Antoine Fuqua, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams and Forrest Whitaker.

Movie Plot :

Billy Hope is a boxer who succesfully defended his world title but sustained eye injurys and spits a lot of blood which scares his wife, Maureen, and she convinces him to retire. At first Billy is a bit hesitant, being taunted by a yound contender, Miguel Escobar, he would like to show the kid who's the champion but at last he agrees to do what's best for his wife and daughter.

Billy and Maureen were both orphans and attend a charity event at the orphanage they grew up, Escobar is present and taunts Billy again, tensions rises leading to a tragic event.

Billy becomes a mess, abusing drug and alcohol, he ends up being beaten in a fight and headbutts the referee leading him to be suspended, fined by the ref and indebted.

Spiralling out of control, Billy loses everything and has to start back from the bottom to mend the pieces of his broken life.

My impressions :

+ The acting is great, even the daughter ! It's not often that a child actor does that well.
+ Even if it's full of clichés, they work well. The movie is way more emotional than i expected it to be.
+ Boxing matches look real, the use of some POV shots works well. They are only used in the last rounds which felt like diving in those last minutes where both boxers give everything they have left to win.

- The clichés. Yep it's in both the + and - because even if they work well, they could have been avoided.
- The damn trailer is definitely to be avoided if you're going to see the movie.

To conclude, this movie is really good but it suffers from the time it's released, Rocky has been a reference in boxing movies for 40 years, million dollar baby was 11 years ago and boxing movies seems to follow the same formula BUT that doesn't make Southpaw a bad movie and i'm sure if people didn't compare it to Rocky it may have received better reviews. I'd say check it out, the movie is more than just about boxing, yes it's cliché, but the acting makes it worth and the emotional parts don't turn it into a tearjerker like Million Dollar Baby (still liked Eastwood's movie but at times it felt a bit too much)

<big><big>7.5/10</big></big>