Southpaw Review- a critique by Chris Stuckmann

Full-text transcript of the Southpaw review:

[00:00:04] Southpaws directed by Antoine Fuqua and stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams and Forest Whitaker, and as the story of a down on his luck boxer who has a great record until something really bad happens in his life, that forces him to rethink his priorities and try to get his a game back again and deal with a very bad situation that happens. And that’s all I’m going to say, because thanks to you guys, I didn’t watch any of the trailers for this movie because you guys tweeted me when the trailer came out like, hey, Chris, don’t watch the trailer for South Park. It spoil so much, just stay away from it. So I have you guys to thank you awesome friggin people to thank for the fact that I did not get this entire film. Spoil it for me because I went back and watched the trailer after having seen this film. And yeah, they spoil pretty much the entire plot. Just stay away from the trailer of South Park because this is a very good movie, I think, and one that you should experience without knowing too much, because that’s how I experienced it, thankfully. The biggest issue that I had was south is that it follows every genre trope and cliche of a boxing movie. You could imagine there’s the down on his luck fighter, the family drama, the big climactic boxing match, the training montage.

[00:01:10] Basically, if you replace Jake Gyllenhaal with Sylvester Stallone and toned down the language, you’d have Rocky seven. I mean, they’re pretty much all the same. But I’ve said this in my reviews before. If a film is clichéd and it embraces those cliches and it understands what works about those cliches and it’s well acted and well directed and there’s obvious passion behind the project, I can get behind it. And Southpaws is one of the best acting movies I’ve seen so far in 2015. Gyllenhaal again blows me away in this movie, Prisoners Nightcrawler and now Southpaw. This guy is proving that he is a master class actor working today and he commits to this role not just physically with his body, but the intensity of his performance portrayed in the ring and the subtlety of the drama that he’s able to create, especially with the actress who plays his daughter, who actually impressed me even more. This young girl, I’m telling you, she is worthy of a best supporting actress nomination. She was magnificent in this movie. Never once did I see her and say, oh, that’s a cute kid performance. She’s really trying. She felt so passionately real in this movie. And I have to give her major, major commendation because she pulled off an excellent role.

[00:02:16] You know what? Rachel McAdams also does her best work in years. Forest Whitaker does his best work in years. He’s really great as a person who takes on Gyllenhaal and tries to train him to get him back up to speed again. And despite all of those cliches fitting into the various puzzle pieces you probably can predict they will fit into. I was invested in this movie because of the passion that Antoine Fuqua put into his directing. He created a very gritty and realistic world with Southpaw and one that was unforgiving in every way. At times in this movie, you will feel quite literally beaten over the head with the drama and not in a bad way. It pounds you down into the ground when you witness some of the atrocities that this man has to go through. It’s not overly sappy. It’s not melodramatic, in my opinion. Anyway, I felt that it was very real. And what I was really pleased with was the way they film the boxing matches. I was afraid it was going to be some crazy shaki like zoom in and out shaky cam bullshit. But it wasn’t it was very well filmed. They use beautiful wide takes some slow motion that really got you in that moment.

[00:03:16] But he had this really effective way of making you seem like you were the boxer getting punched in the face who would actually have Gyllenhaal or his opponent punching at the camera and the camera would duck and move and weave and bob back and forth like a boxer would. And it was extremely effective. It really put you in that moment. You really felt like the dirty blood and sweat of what a boxer getting pummeled into the ground would feel like. A guy who’s down on his luck, who has family problems, probably financial problems, is going to train really hard and work really hard. And you’re going to want him to win and you’re going to want to care about him. I mean, that’s basically the encapsulation of what every boxing movie ever is. And to complain about that, in my opinion, is like if you went to the new Star Wars film in December and complained that there were too many space battles or too many light saber fights, there are certain things that, you know, are going to happen in a movie like this. And you kind of just have to accept them because that’s the way these stories are told and that’s the way these stories work the best because of the intense and obvious commitment of Gyllenhaal and Fuqua in regards to acting and directing this film.

[00:04:15] I really enjoyed it in the end and I was wrapped up in the story. I’m going to give Southpaw A B plus. So if you are to see a new release this weekend, I would strongly recommend checking out Southpaw if you get a chance to see it. Also, I want to let you guys know that my promotion with audible dot com is still going on. I’m giving my viewers a free audio book download of their choice. If they go to audible dot com Chris, you can browse their selection and have a free audio book on me and audible. It’s my gift to you guys. I’m always looking for promotions that allow me to give something back to you guys. I was really excited to see how much Starwars content is actually on that site because I’m a huge fan of the Star Wars books. I enjoy reading them. Guys, go to audible dotcom slash Chris and you can have a free audio book. That’s it. It’s absolutely free. My gift to you guys and my promotion with them is going to continue on for the next few months. Thank you so much, as always, for watching, guys. If you like this, you can click right here and get stuck, minimized.