**SPOILERS***
This movie is packed with a 1-2 combination of cliché story elements and very convenient character situations. The movie starts off well, we establish the characters very easily with Jake Gyllenhaal and Rachel McAdams's generous chemistry, and they both look incredible on the set together, easily steals the show. 50 cent looked clean and dapper, and Forest Whitaker delivered great realism, and that's about where it ends.
The Story shows a man who is just loaded with money. He's a mindblowing 43-0 (yea right) and during his after fight press conference, was interrupted by a would-be trash talking contender...OK sure that's great, seems solid so far, but from there the story goes a bit out of control. 50 cent working purely in his own interest, tries working a $30 million dollar deal using Gyllenhaal, and his wife being the brains behind the duo, quickly shoots it down believing that any more fights would permanently injure her husband and turn him into a walking tomato. VERY conveniently and shortly thereafter, Rachel McAdams is shot and killed by "accident" after a brawl broke out between the trash talking contender and Gyllenhaal, and quickly loses everything, and I mean everything. Somehow he goes from millionaire, to broke, to losing his kids and his home, car, and I guess non-existent savings, there isn't even anything in the plot about how maybe the wife hid money or someone stole the money from him, nope he just somehow had too many expenses and simply lost all his money. The story then moves to how he has to completely change who he is to satisfy his new boxing coach, his overbearing court decisions to take away his kid, and somehow make back the money he seemed to lose in an instant. Despite all that struggle, there is very little connection with any of the other characters after McAdams leaves the scene, and very little attachment to any of the very typical plot development other than he comes back and wins with seemingly very little struggle. The movie being called "southpaw" by the way is not about the fighter actually being a southpaw at all, neither was the contender, but conveniently called that because of an Eminem single and for magically landing an uppercut in the final round of the final fight by switching stances (which we didn't see) and that's it. Despite great performances, much of the story just left me wondering "why do I care about any of this" for a big chunk of the movie.
You can also feel that there are parts to the story that are suppose to make us feel bad or force us to feel connected to the characters that just don't work or don't seem to fit. Losing his child is very difficult, but her behavior and reactions though seemingly honest and real, don't seem to make much sense and seem a bit unrealistic, she seemed very close with her dad and ended up wishing he was dead were quite the extremes. The same can be said for the character Hoppy, who spent maybe 3 minutes of on screen time with Gyllenhaal and ended up losing his life in a domestic violence dispute with his family. There is a very real performance by Forest Whitaker about the situation, but why is it important to us as the audience? They didn't even touch on the character that much and we are suppose to have an emotional reaction? That in a nutshell is how the entire movie felt after the first 20 minutes.
I did watch the film through to the end, so for that I give it a 5 for keeping me interested at least through the whole show. The villain was too thuggish to be taken seriously, his reasons for losing all of his money didn't seem realistic, and much of how the story developed did so in a way that didn't seem to be very logical in real life, and VERY far from the well thought out movie that Rocky was.
This movie is packed with a 1-2 combination of cliché story elements and very convenient character situations. The movie starts off well, we establish the characters very easily with Jake Gyllenhaal and Rachel McAdams's generous chemistry, and they both look incredible on the set together, easily steals the show. 50 cent looked clean and dapper, and Forest Whitaker delivered great realism, and that's about where it ends.
The Story shows a man who is just loaded with money. He's a mindblowing 43-0 (yea right) and during his after fight press conference, was interrupted by a would-be trash talking contender...OK sure that's great, seems solid so far, but from there the story goes a bit out of control. 50 cent working purely in his own interest, tries working a $30 million dollar deal using Gyllenhaal, and his wife being the brains behind the duo, quickly shoots it down believing that any more fights would permanently injure her husband and turn him into a walking tomato. VERY conveniently and shortly thereafter, Rachel McAdams is shot and killed by "accident" after a brawl broke out between the trash talking contender and Gyllenhaal, and quickly loses everything, and I mean everything. Somehow he goes from millionaire, to broke, to losing his kids and his home, car, and I guess non-existent savings, there isn't even anything in the plot about how maybe the wife hid money or someone stole the money from him, nope he just somehow had too many expenses and simply lost all his money. The story then moves to how he has to completely change who he is to satisfy his new boxing coach, his overbearing court decisions to take away his kid, and somehow make back the money he seemed to lose in an instant. Despite all that struggle, there is very little connection with any of the other characters after McAdams leaves the scene, and very little attachment to any of the very typical plot development other than he comes back and wins with seemingly very little struggle. The movie being called "southpaw" by the way is not about the fighter actually being a southpaw at all, neither was the contender, but conveniently called that because of an Eminem single and for magically landing an uppercut in the final round of the final fight by switching stances (which we didn't see) and that's it. Despite great performances, much of the story just left me wondering "why do I care about any of this" for a big chunk of the movie.
You can also feel that there are parts to the story that are suppose to make us feel bad or force us to feel connected to the characters that just don't work or don't seem to fit. Losing his child is very difficult, but her behavior and reactions though seemingly honest and real, don't seem to make much sense and seem a bit unrealistic, she seemed very close with her dad and ended up wishing he was dead were quite the extremes. The same can be said for the character Hoppy, who spent maybe 3 minutes of on screen time with Gyllenhaal and ended up losing his life in a domestic violence dispute with his family. There is a very real performance by Forest Whitaker about the situation, but why is it important to us as the audience? They didn't even touch on the character that much and we are suppose to have an emotional reaction? That in a nutshell is how the entire movie felt after the first 20 minutes.
I did watch the film through to the end, so for that I give it a 5 for keeping me interested at least through the whole show. The villain was too thuggish to be taken seriously, his reasons for losing all of his money didn't seem realistic, and much of how the story developed did so in a way that didn't seem to be very logical in real life, and VERY far from the well thought out movie that Rocky was.