A movie that will shake you !
Billy Hope brilliantly interpreted by Jake Gyllenhaal (alrealy awesome recently in “Nightcrawler”), is the light heavyweight world champion of boxing. He lives with his wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) and their daughter Leila until an awful event devastate their lives.
This movie deals with the downfall of the boxing champion and his recovery. And it is poignant.
You care for this character, you watch him struggle and evolve against all odds.
You are shaken by the plot and the violentl fights thanks Antoine Fuqua’s directing (“Training Day”) with subjective camera (the audience’s point of view being the character’s one).
The movie pace reminds you of “Equalizer”, from the same director. You don’t get bored one second with this movie! It is particularly due to the editor John Refoua, who edited almost every movie of Fuqua, and who was nominated for an Oscar for best editing for “Avatar”.
The father/ daughter duo works perfectly. Firstly because it is well interpreted by Jake Gyllenhaal (“Nightcrawler“, “Prisoners”, “Brothers”, “Zodiac”, “Jarhead”, “Donnie Darko”, etc…),he is one of the greatest actor of his generation and he makes the best movie roles choices. He interprets this father with brio and transformed himself radically to be credible as a professional boxer. And he succeeded to do so. Secondly, the actress playing his daughter Oona Laurence is also pretty great and makes me think she is bound to have a good career ahead !
The trainer played by Forest Whitaker is also very credible by his boxing strategies and the fact his character has a lot of principles without be too moralizing. He is Billy’s mentor and a sort of alter ego.
I am a boxer so I can tell you I was very attentive on all the boxing parts and the job was well done for me.
But even if you don’t care for boxing, the movie transports, even makes you cry at times. Even though a lot of movies have been done on this subject (“Raging Bull”, “Warrior”, “Fighter”, “Rocky”, “Million dollar baby”…) I can assure you this one is worth seeing too.
Great actors performances (especially Gyllenhaal’s of course), a great soundtrack with the song Phenomenal d’Eminem and the score composed by the recently deceased James Horner. It’s not about being moralizing but about becoming your better self.
I am only waiting for its DVD release !
Is it #DudeChick certified ?
Jake Gyllenhaal at his best, a movie about surpassing oneself & Eminem !
#Dudechick, what’s that ?
[sixthtype_review post_id=”20304″]
Here’s the trailer (but I advice you not to watch because it spoils the movie a lot)
image source: SND
