Film Review: Southpaw

Southpaw. Rated MA15+ (strong violence and coarse language). 124 minutes. Directed by Antoine Fuqua. Screenplay by Kurt Sutter.

Over the years, the world of boxing has been responsible for a collection of genre and generation defining performances. From Sylvester Stallone in Rocky (1976), Robert De Niro in Raging Bull (1980) and Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby (2004), the physically, mentally and emotionally gruelling and highly-disciplined world in which these modern day gladiators exist, has powered some unforgettable cinematic experiences.

In Southpaw, undefeated World Light Heavyweight champion Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) is beginning to struggle with the rigours of the sport. Billy’s wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) is concerned that he is being hit in the face more often than he once was, and that their future together with daughter Leila (Oona Laurence) will be forever scarred by the head injuries he is constantly sustaining.

But when tragedy strikes at a glittering fundraising gala, Leila is placed into state care and Billy has only one way of recovering from the devastation. He seeks out the services of renowned trainer and ex-boxer Titus Wills (Forest Whitaker), who he hopes will help him win back both the championship and his beloved daughter.

Sutter’s central trainer/boxing star relationship suffers by comparison to Million Dollar Baby’s extraordinary Clint Eastwood/Hillary Swank combination, and Whitaker (who won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland) gets nothing to sink his teeth into.

Fuqua’s (Training Day, The Equalizer) fearless, probing direction delivers some fantastic in-the-moment and in-your-face, literally, sequences. But even with Gyllenhaal’s towering performance as the deeply-flawed Billy, Sutter’s (Sons of Anarchy) surprisingly unadventurous screenplay struggles to shine in the long shadow of its vastly superior siblings.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Jersey Boys

Jersey Boys. Rated M (frequent coarse language). 134 minutes. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice.

Verdict: Clint Eastwood delivers the sensational Jersey Boys to the screen flawlessly.

Since its Broadway premiere in 2005, Brickman and Elice’s music theatre version of Jersey Boys has played to critical and public acclaim all over the world. Boasting the perfect rags-to-riches and back to rags again story about four boys from New Jersey who would achieve international fame as The Four Seasons, and a soundtrack to die for, this cinematic adaptation is simply perfection.

Eastwood (as he proved with Million Dollar Baby and Changeling to name just two of his directorial triumphs), understands the intimacy of human drama possibly better than any director working in cinema today. With his constant collaborators, cinematographer Tom Stern and production designer James Murakami, Eastwood painstakingly recreates the era to perfection, acknowledging the work’s origins with a lavish, multi-dimensional theatrical sensibility.

John Lloyd Young (who played Frankie Valli on Broadway) leads an exceptionally multi-talented ensemble, who embrace the material with consummate passion and skill. It’s not hard to see why Lloyd Young won practically every award going for his Broadway debut performance as Valli. Not only does he account for the performer’s powerful falsetto magnificently, Lloyd Young’s is an un-showy performance of immense musical and emotional depth.

Vincent Piazza (Boardwalk Empire) is equally good as the charismatic Tommy DeVito, whose determination to create a better life for himself and his friends would derail spectacularly as the group began to achieve its well-deserved recognition. Piazza brings the loveable rogue to the screen beautifully, and if it is impossible to dislike him for the role he plays in the group’s final years together, it’s because without him, they would never have existed.

It’s unlikely that nostalgia buffs will have a better time in the cinema this year than with this lovingly crafted film from a director who, somehow, just keeps getting better and better.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Hereafter

Hereafter. Rated M (mature themes and infrequent coarse language). 129 minutes. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by Peter Morgan.

Death, and what, if anything, comes after it, has been an endless source of material for some unforgettable films – Passengers (2008), The Others (2001), The Sixth Sense (1999) and Ghost (1990), to name just four.

In Eastwood’s (Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Changeling, Grand Torino) contemplative drama from Morgan’s (Frost/Nixon, The Queen, The Last King of Scotland) intricate screenplay, we have a beautifully-crafted, lilting ode to lost souls – each of whom have their lives changed forever by their proximity to death.

When French television journalist ‘Marie’ (Cécile de France) survives a tsunami, her near-death experience challenges everything she ever imagined her life would be. In San Francisco, ‘George Lonegan’ (Matt Damon) is a recently-retired psychic, desperate to create a life for himself other than the one he has guiding others through their relationships with the dead. In London, young twins ‘Marcus’ and ‘Jason’ (Frankie and George McLaren) are caring for their heroin-addicted mother until Fate intervenes, with tragic results.

Resisting the reality-warping tendencies of some films in the ‘afterlife’ genre, Hereafter is a consummate piece of cinematic story-telling for people who like their movies slow, richly-layered and, ultimately, incredibly moving. 80-year-old Eastwood is at the peak of his considerable powers as a director – and like Peter Jackson did in similar territory with the extraordinary The Lovely Bones (2009) – brings a skilfully-assured, craftsman’s hands to the proceedings.

Damon is excellent as the frustrated ‘George’, while the McLaren boys are wonderful as the young twins – bringing rare and unpretentious emotional clout to their scenes. The scene where Marcus waits patiently for hours outside George’s London hotel proceeded to undo me completely.

Even though the Tsunami sequence is magnificently rendered and entirely worthy of its Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects, Hereafter quickly moves on to become an utterly compelling and richly rewarding film about our notions of immortality – and is guaranteed to have you thinking about life, death and everything in-between for hours afterwards.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.