Southpaw wasn't a knock-out punch for me. It was watchable, but way too generic

Rating: 7/10 (9 September 2015)

If you saw any boxing movie before, you seem them, all. This movie is no differs. Directed by Antonie Fuqua, and written by Kurt Sutter, the film tells the story of pro-fighter Billy 'The Great' Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) trying to turn his around, on after losing his wife in a tragic accident and his daughter to child protection services. Can Billy Hope win this fight or will he lose his family for good? Watch the movie to find out! Without spoiling the movie too much, I found that this sports drama to be pretty bland. Very unoriginal. To start with, if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the movie. It was unbelievably predictable. It has every boxing film standard; the everyman fighter, the ultra-supportive wife, the rags to riches, riches to rags, type storyline culminating in the fight of the century. The film was originally considered as an unofficial follow-up to the 2002's movie, 8 Mile with Eminem reprising his role as Jimmy 'B-Rabbit' Smith, becoming a professional boxer, instead of a rapper. Eminem even accepted the role and started to get ready to film a few scenes, only to back out of it, during the early stages of production. Since, Eminem wanted to focus on his music career, the idea of the 8 Mile sequel was scrapped. The role was then given to Jake Gyllenhaal, where the script eventually evolved into the film, that it is, today. Southpaw still does features a hard-driving hip-hop soundtrack by Eminem that meshes perfectly with jump-roping scenes and footwork-and-punching practice. The music was surprising, mixed very well, with the rest of the film. I have to say, the movie was beautifully shot. Great work from Antonie Fuqua. The acting in this movie, not so much. Don't get me wrong, Jake Gyllenhaal did an okay job acting, but he was totally unbelievable as a boxer, even after getting trained by pro-boxer, Miguel Cotto. Honestly, what type of pro-boxer, doesn't know, a little bit of defense!? It doesn't make sense. I have to say, his look was pretty good, for the most part. It was a huge accomplishment to get from playing an uber skinny man, a year ago in 2014's Nightcrawler to being totally ripped in this film. I give him, props for that, even if it's unhealthy as hell, to lose and gain that much weight in a short period of time. Still, it's not enough, to say, that his performance was great. Yes, he's ferocious and yet vulnerable, but I can't help, laughing at some of the character's deep dark moments in the movie, due to how over-the-top unsympathetic, his performance was. One thing that I didn't like about the film is that his character's metamorphosis from unlikeable immature boy to well-mannered adult, really comes out of nowhere. He and Rachel McAdams share a great chemistry, together on film, but sadly, it was short-lived. Rachel McAdams on her own, wasn't that great. Her death scene was a bit, silly. Oona Laurence as Billy Hope's kid, Leila Hope was mostly alright, but the way, she acted and look, remind me, way too much of the character, Margo from 2010's animation film, Despicable Me. Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson was in the film, as Billy's manager, but he rarely add anything to the story. Forest Whitaker gives a crucial performance in this movie, as Tick Willis, Billy's new trainer. By far, he had the best performance in the film. The scene, where he's reacting to somebody's death was very memorable. Still, the movie lacks the heart of something like the Rocky series, or the smarts of 1980's Raging Bull. One of the biggest problems of the film is how uneven, it was. It really got unbelievable at times. I really don't know, how a man can go from being pay millions of dollars for prize fights to nearly bankrupt. There was no even flow from one situation to another. There needs to be more plausible reasons to explain the chain of events that leads to a person's downfall. The accidental shooting of his wife, I understand, but the loss of all his money and losing custody of his daughter in less than a few months was just a little to convenient. The premise needed a few more works. Overall: In my opinion, this was just a satisfying heart-tugging comeback story, that could had been great, but end up, being pretty mediocre. It didn't fight hard enough.