Sports dramas about boxing are not unheard of in the seventh art. From "Wild Bull" to the latest Rocky installment, we've been delighted with stories of self-improvement in this violent and passionate sport.
And here comes the right-handed Antoine Fuqua and proposes in "Southpaw" another story of the boxer who falls into hell and who must learn to improve as an athlete and as a human. A well-known and certainly banal story in a big way but in which Fuqua does wonders to show us as surprising and at the same time threatening.
In "Southpaw", we meet Billy Hope, a professional boxer... but he too and unable to control his violent tendencies. After a tragic incident, Hope is dragged into the dark.
"Southpaw" is true that it is a family plot. But its appetizing and seductive formula is always effective and long-lasting if it is carried out with maturity, judgment, nervous talent... and fortunately it is. In "Southpaw", the viewer can be carried away by the emotion, the pleasure and the hypnosis by the game that Billy Hope gives him.
The plot is not only entertaining, scalable and powerful enough, it also takes care of its details. With vigorous and cultivated dialogue, and with moments loaded with duality, subtlety and punch, "Southpaw" sometimes turns magnetic. And in this an even better staging helps a lot his own script.
The truth is that the director is from the world of music videos and this is constantly evident in "Southpaw", all his resources work on this particular plot with a congruence rarely seen in the cinema. The skill and courage that Fuqua exhibits is most remarkable. With an extraordinary dynamism in his montage, with a use of medium shots in his shaken camera and with a mastery of slow motion insertion in the most necessary, and with a seasoned use of alternative approach...
Fuqua shines in his direction like never before. On his part, the late James Horner incites suspense and intrigue with a soundtrack of the most, the sound is immeasurable, and Mauro Fiore offers us a delicious and clean cinematography, with a blues and elegant photography, ocher and chiaroscuro.
And last but not least, the film with natural interpretations where, of course, Gyllenhaal stands out in one of the best performances of his career. And I say this without being a fan of precisely this, which always gave me the impression of presenting his characters as excessively soft and cuddly, although it does not mean that 'he could do more natural Interpretations and capable of sustaining a drama.
With a deep, human and multifaceted interpretation, Gyllenhaal is complicity and emotion towards the viewer, doing so in all his afflictions. Whitaker is as remarkable as he is as Rachel McAdams, her role is natural and intense...
So "Southpaw" is an intimate sports drama... but also completely effective and intense. Well, not only does the script act as the backbone of the ever-engaging film, but "Southpaw" draws inspiration from the details of the drama and is astute in directing.
"Southpaw" is succulent and tasty, although it does not avoid some pointless and unpredictable point there, they are certainly exceptions that may be allowed in an ensemble.
