A man of good faith.

Rating: 7/10 (16 March 2019)

Every person is capable of good intentions. And within intentions lies the phenomenon one might term " good faith". That is, can a person make the utmost of the moral understanding at their disposal to translate their good intentions to the material and practical world in a profound and honorable way? If you can, you have "good faith", regardless of how far that falls short of objective justice. One example of good faith would be a slave master, in a world where all they know is slave-keeping, from their parents, religious leaders, and culture, but yet they find their way to treating their slaves with great compassion and respect, and eventually even to setting them free. Is this enough to satisfy objective justice? No. Should we demand from them that they do far more? Yes. For example, the slave master should obviously fight against slavery in general, not just let his own slaves go free. But what we can do with such a person is respect their good faith. That is to say, we can appreciate their good intentions that they have translated to the world around them, and we can sympathize and identify with that part of them. Because after all, none of us are immune to grave moral error. We must salute the flag of good faith in all people, regardless of their moral condition in other respects. Southpaw is a movie about just such a person. He comes from a world of extreme violence and survival. But in the end no one can deny how hard this man tries, to do justice to his wife and daughter and himself. And that quality we should salute in him, a quality that raises him in stature above other human beings who have the benefit of far better moral understanding, but who have made less of what they were given. This movie benefits from an extraordinary performance by Forest Whittaker, and some excellent moments from Jake Gyllenhaal and Oona Laurence.