SouthPaw: WHY? HOW COME?

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, Rachel McAdams
Rated: 5/10
Hollywood content from the boxing ring have a familiar ring to them. An out of limelight boxing champion, ridden with tragedy, living in a haze of drug, alcohol and depression — you’ve seen them all. This one too is similar if not same.
Losing his beloved wife in a brawl initiated by him, lightweight boxing champion of the world Billy Hope goes rogue — he drinks, he attempts suicide, he neglects his daughter and he goes out of the ring too. When coaxed by his agent, he fights only to lose shamefully. His luxury pad, his cars, his bank accounts are all seized and his daughter Leila — whom he incidentally loves very much — is sent to child care.
Familiar? All this mess in Hollywoodian boxers life down the ages? Exactly, and that’s why we question why this movie was at all made and how shamelessly it tries to be an ape of former such ones.
The dark insides of the film, the over-running emotion of defeat and the blurred dialogues spoken in undertones all throughout give the film a lot of brickbats, somehow faultlessly.
The need to go to this one should arise only if you are a stranger with Hollywood and its boxing content.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, August 2, 2015

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