Another long-awaited post about upcoming movies that I think will have great combat. Today, we’ll look at the trailer for the upcoming film Southpaw and compare it to other films in the genre to generate reasonable expectations for its fight choreography and performance.
I try to look at the pedigree of the filmmakers to give myself a fair expectation, instead of relying on just an exciting trailer. We all know that the preview often does not match the final product.
Southpaw
In Their Corner
We have to start with Jake Gyllenhaal, who is practically unrecognizable in the poster, playing another mentally unhinged and socially ostracized protagonist. His career spans roles in Donnie Darko, Jarhead, Zodiac, Source Code, Enemy leading up to last year’s Nightcrawler. He’s great at it, and I find him fascinating to watch, but this is not new territory to him. His physical transformation for Southpaw is garnering attention, just like those of Christian Bale.
Speaking of Christian Bale, one of the writers of Southpaw is Richard Wenk who wrote the Mechanic (2011), but that’s not The Machinist (2004) in which Bale dropped to 110 lbs, so never mind. Let’s refocus on Kurt Sutter who was the show runner for Sons of Anarchy (2008-2014). That means he has the “created by” credit and wrote the majority of the episodes. When it comes to Shakespearean levels of violence, Sutter is your writer.
The director is Antoine Fuqua, known for his work in the film Training Day (Oscar winner) as well as The Replacement Killers (impressive gun-fu film), Tears of the Sun (mediocre war film), King Arthur (remember Keira Knightley’s archery), Shooter (decent Mark Wahlberg vehicle), Brooklyn’s Finest (what?), Olympus Has Fallen (with Gerard Butler; the one with Channing Tatum was White House Down) and The Equalizer. There are some hits and misses there. Perhaps the important thing to note is that they all have well-shot action scenes, and this is his second collaboration with Wenk.
The trailer makes the story look a little formulaic: beautiful and supportive wife killed and daughter taken away, the fighter who once retired is now back to redeem himself, despite risk to his own life. It’s Commando with fewer guns. It’s Gladiator with fewer swords. It’s the Crusading Widower (try not to spend the rest of the day on TVtropes.org like I did).
Action Score
Boxing. One of my favourite films with boxing is Snatch (2000), and I use it in stage combat classes to show the effect of editing to show the feel of a fight, rather than a blow-by-blow. Other boxing movies to compare include the classic Raging Bull and the Rocky series.
What’s the Lesson?
We can hope that the fight scenes will be as beautiful as Snatch and Raging Bull, and that the performances will be moving. With a great writing team, we can hope that the script will deliver something out of the ordinary… but the thing I see most is white guys redeeming their downfall by beating up black guys.
Therefore, I’m putting my endorsement behind The Fighter (2010), so we can give Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale some good fights, and a chance to knock out other white guys to redeem their brain damage from this brutal sport. Another great choice is the depression-era Cinderella Man (2005) with Russell Crowe, directed by Ron Howard. Paul Giamatti won several awards and nominations for his supporting role.
Great Summer Ahead
Let’s not ignore the other great action movies that will be released this summer. I’m also including movies that might be mediocre productions, but may have amazing fight scenes.
As a stage combat instructor, I'm not a huge fan of car chases and other stunts, so I'd normally avoid The Fast & The Furious, but the latest in the F&F franchise looks to have some fun fights. I usually ignore the gun-toting action movies, but I’m making an exception for Hitman which I think will have more hand-to-hand than the next Mission Impossible instalment.
Head of Stage Combat at Academie Duello and certified Instructor with Fight Directors Canada. Head of Bartitsu at Academie Duello, the longest continuously running Bartitsu program in the world. Read more from David McCormick.