Does the world really need another movie about a gritty white boxer from the wrong side of the tracks, who gets as good as he gives, whose struggles in the ring mirror his struggles in his personal life? Absolutely not. And yet the sheer, unblinking earnestness with which Southpaw tries to convince you that it does almost works. It sticks to the formula so closely that it becomes a mantra, an incantation. “He gets as good as he gives. He gets as good he gives. It’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up. Where’d you park the car Boo Boo forever and ever amen.”
How predictable is Southpaw? Jake Gyllenhaal plays a boxer named Billy “The Great” Hope. Billy Hope is married to his childhood sweetheart (Rachel McAdams), whom he met when he was 12, when they were both living in “a Hell’s Kitchen orphanage.” (Does Hell’s Kitchen still have orphanages? My ex-girlfriend used to live there, and it was pretty nice.) During one of Billy’s victories, announcer Roy Jones Jr. (playing himself) quips, “We still have Hope!” The soundtrack for Billy Hope’s Rocky-style training montage? Eminem.