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Southpaw | 2015 | R | - 5.7.10

A champion boxer (Jake Gyllenhaal) feels torn as his wife (Rachel McAdams) begs him to quit his high-income sport and spend more time with their daughter (Oona Laurence). After a tragic event, child protective agents take away his daughter when he turns to substance abuse. Seeking a comeback, he returns to boxing with the help of a former pro trainer (Forest Whitaker) who now works with underprivileged kids. Also with Naomie Harris, Victor Ortiz, and 50 Cent. Directed by Antoine Fuqua. [2:03]

SEX/NUDITY 5 - A shirtless man lies on his back on a bed and his clothed wife kneels on top of him, straddling his hips in the bed while they talk; they kiss briefly a few times and she sucks on one of his fingers twice, she then pulls her clingy skirt up to her waist to reveal lace panties in a close-up back view and in a mirror as we see the man and woman kiss for several seconds; the camera cuts to the next morning with the man alone in bed and we see his bare chest (sex is implied). A woman hugs a boxer and kisses him on the forehead in a dressing room before a boxing match.
 After a boxing match a man sits naked in profile on the locker room shower floor, his back against a wall and the water running (we see one buttock). Several scenes show male adult and teenage boxers wearing knee-length boxing trunks and shirtless. A woman wears a very short dress with a scoop neck that reveals cleavage. Four sets of models parade placards of the number of each round in boxing rings, wiggling as they walk: One set wears a skimpy bikini and we see cleavage, bare midriff and thighs; another set of women wears skimpy sports bras with skimpy bottoms, showing more cleavage, navels, and partial buttocks; another set wears skimpy bikinis that also show navels and buttocks; a fourth set wears skimpy bikini tops with thin boy-shorts underwear-type panties and we see the bottoms of their buttocks from a rear view and a front view shows cleavage, midriffs and navels. A woman wears a one-piece swimsuit that is cut high and almost to the waist at her thighs and low in front, to below her waist to reveal cleavage and bare legs. Several women wear V-neck tops that reveal cleavage. A woman wears a low-cut dress that reveals some cleavage. A woman wears a loose smock over a bra and panties and we see cleavage. A woman wears a thin-strapped top that has slipped down over one shoulder and is cut short to reveal her stomach and navel along with short shorts.

VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - Two men argue loudly and curse in a hotel lobby, and begin a very loud fistfight until other men pull them apart, and then a woman off-screen screams and a member of the entourage of one of the men shoots a handgun and drops it, after which another man tackles him and pins him to the floor; one of the arguing men sees his wife standing with blood on her hands and abdomen where she was struck by a bullet and she babbles, "Something happened" several times as he lays her down on the floor and her face smears with blood from her hands as she coughs up blood and dies; her husband shouts and cries loudly, blood covering his face, shirt and jacket.
 A man kneels beside his bed with his face pressed to the mattress and screams into it three times, then loads a handgun on the bed and walks outside his house at night; another man speaks to him and the first man jams the gun under the other man's chin and then into his face and tells him to move out of the house; the first man drives away and stops at an apartment building with his gun in hand and goes inside looking for a man who is absent, but sees the man's mistress and her four young children (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details).
 A man sits in his running car near a large tree, he drives the car fast into the tree and we hear and see a loud crash as the windshield folds in half and pops out of the car, partially shattering, and the horn honks for several seconds by itself; the camera cuts to a little girl inside a house, who cries and screams, and then rushes downstairs and finds the man (her father) curled up in the foyer, unconscious.
 During a boxing match with a crowded audience that is shouting and cheering, two fighters pound each other in the ring with heavy blows and we hear loud smacks while outside the ring, and we see police officers, sheriff's deputies, and soldiers in dress uniforms with rifles standing guard; both fighters' faces suffer multiple cuts and then bleed, sweat and saliva splatters, both men spit water off-screen in their corners several times and blood runs from one fighter's mouth onto his chest as a corner man wipes it up (we see some bloody white towels)
 A boxing match shows two men in a ring pounding each other in the face, body and stomach with loud blows until both men develop bloody faces and the eye of one of the men bleeds; between rounds in their corners, both men spit water that we see, a man puts a compress on one boxer's cut eyelid and douses some type of medicine onto it to stave bleeding; blood, sweat and saliva splash toward the camera from both men and the shins of one of the boxers is smudged with blood that dripped from his face in the ring and one fighter head butts the referee knocking him down and medical techs attend to him, but we see no injuries to the referee. A boxer punches another boxer twice and sends him across the ring and onto the mat, face down.
 A boxer is punched illegally below the belt and falls for a 6-count; the downed man's young daughter in the dressing room watches on a large TV screen and cries and the girl's father gets up and punches the other man several times.
 A boxing match includes many hard hits to the head and body and we hear loud smacks; both boxers end with bloody faces, one man is knocked down and a close-up shows his dazed and bruised face on the mat briefly while the other man's eye is red, bloodshot and seems to have a blood clot in it; in the locker room, the second man's mouth drools a long line of blood that a woman wipes away and we see several bloody towels on a table; the crowd shouts and applauds during the match and during a press conference afterwards.
 In slow motion, a bloody-faced boxer grimaces, lunges angrily toward the camera and shouts garbled, drawn out words in slowed down audio while his eyes, nose, mouth, and teeth drip blood. There are many boxing scenes that result in sweat, injuries, shouting, splattering spit and blood, and dripping blood.
 A boxer has a profusely bleeding left eye in many scenes and his face often looks swollen and bruised under several day's growth of scruffy beard; his voice is course and raspy and he often mumbles and limps. We see half a dozen bloody towels outside a large shower stall. A little girl counts eight cuts on her father's face after his boxing match and we later see two long abrasions on his lower back when he is shirtless and we see him limp as he groans. A man in a hospital bed is semi-conscious (please see the Substance Use category for more details) with blood across his cut face and blood dripping onto his white shirt; an oxygen line runs to his nose, where it is clipped in place and we see blurry images from his point of view, including an image of his dead wife; he shouts deliriously and fights several attendants who restrain him and we see that his eye is bloody and the next day it is swollen shut with bruising and his face shows multiple cuts and a small strip bandage over part of his left eye.
 An exhibition-boxing match features two fighters hitting each other moderately hard in the face and body and blocking punches; one man knocks the other man out to win the match and we see some sweat fly by the camera lens.
 A court scene features several guards restraining a shouting man at one table and a crying little girl at another table as the two (father and daughter) try to reach each other and a judge orders the man to have anger management training and to maintain sobriety, then places the child into protective services' custody; the child cries and shouts as officers take her away and on her father's first visitation, she shouts at him and then refuses to see him on several additional visits. A court scene shows a man receiving a second 30-day sentence to anger management treatment and he looks sad and angry. In a supervised visit and young girl becomes angry, slaps her father in the face four times and pounds his shoulders with her fists as a social worker takes her to her room and her father looks sad and several other children in the background become silent and all the kids turn and stare at him.
 A boxer calls another fighter's dead wife an insulting name and the widower shouts, going into a stomping rage for a few seconds, then becomes quiet as the second man's young daughter backstage screams and then recovers. A boxer heckles another boxer during a news conference. In a hallway afterwards one boxer shouts at his managers and loudly upturns a display table before stalking off. A boxer goes into a rage and smashes several glass display cases that contain championship-boxing belts and glass shatters to the floor.
 A man punching a heavy bag in a gym stops and tells a male friend that a teen boy from the gym died from a gunshot wound; the boy tried to protect his mother from his abusive father and the man shot the boy causing the first man to hug the heavy bag and cry loudly; later, a man tells his friend that what he teaches the youth in the gym is [scatological term deleted] because they really cannot control their lives in this neighborhood. A woman cries briefly and asks her husband to take a break from boxing and he explains that they cannot pay their bills unless he continues. A man argues with his accountant and accuses him of stealing money; the accountant becomes confused, denies the allegation and leaves. We hear that a husband and his wife lived in a series of bad foster homes in Hell's Kitchen as children and he served time in jail. A man argues with a male friend in a small bar and throws a barstool onto the floor, stalking out as the bartender shouts at him to stop his behavior; the man returns and apologizes, and sets the stool back on its legs. A man says that his mother was in jail when he was delivered. A man tells a male friend that his eye was punched hard by another boxer once and changed color, brown to the Blue Evil Eye; then he admits that it is a false eye of the wrong color and it is too much trouble to return it for a brown one (it appears milky blue, as if it contains a cataract). A boxer sits in a large shower stall after a fight, calling, "Is anyone here?" but no one answers (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details). We hear that a boxer's agent "fixes" fights by bribing boxing officials, uses unfair contracts and is a liar. A man and his young daughter visit the grave of her mother/his wife and the little girl cries. A man kneels in a boxing ring, mouths a silent prayer and speaks a few words to his dead wife. A man tells a boxer that stopping punches with his face is not a defense. A young girl cries and says to her father as she hugs him (after a boxing match), "I was scared for you. It was scary."
 A man enters a boxing gym and asks for fight training and a job and, unhappy with the rules curses and walks out, but returns the next day and accepts a cleaning job. A man and a teen boy are told to do 50 pushups each for cursing, but we do not see the pushups. An older man trains youth and men in boxing techniques and we see exercises, boxing drills and some light sparring. A man sets up a series of drills and teaches a boxer to block and dodge punches. During other exercises, a trainer pounds a boxer in the abdomen with a medicine ball several times.
 A man walks down a hallway, faces away from the camera, crouches and vomits onto the floor and we see dark vomit and hear him retching.

LANGUAGE 10 - About 71 F-words and its derivatives, 1 obscene hand gesture, 28 scatological terms, 5 anatomical terms, 11 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, stupid, wussy, punks, liar, mess, scumbag, gnat, dream crusher), 1 religious profanity (GD), 2 religious exclamations (God, God Must Have Some Kind Of Plan).

SUBSTANCE USE - A medical assistant tells a semi-conscious patient that he was in his car passed out with a handgun and under the influence of an unnamed drug, newspaper headlines call a man Great White Dope, in an apartment building hallway a woman opens her door partially and blows a large puff of smoke into the hall (we cannot see a cigarette or other smoking materials) and her speech is a bit slurred suggesting that the smoke may be from a drugged cigarette, and a man in a social services interview says sarcastically that he took only Advil and no other drugs since his last appointment. At two banquets men and women sit at large tables with glasses of champagne and a few tall cocktails and short glasses of whiskey, a short glass of whiskey is shown on a black jack table (no one is sitting there), a short glass of whiskey is seen on an end table in a hotel lobby, a bottle of vodka or gin stands in front of a display case in a home, we see a beer tap at a neighborhood bar, a man sits at a bar drinking a short glass of whiskey, a man sips a short glass of whiskey in front of another man who also takes a sip of it, a man asks another man if he can buy him a beer and the second man says that he doesn't drink, and a man says to a male friend that he is "going to the bar and I don't want to see you there."

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Professional boxing, boxing injuries, competition, anger, revenge, murder, loss, regret, humility, determination, courage, redemption, family, love, friendship, respect, responsibility, parenting, foster care systems.

MESSAGE - With determination, a person can survive serious hardships and losses and regain the love of his family.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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