I am partial to southpaws. The very first one in my life was and is my 15 months younger brother Arvind. The next one to come into my life very much later, actually 27 years later, is my son Ranjan.
Arvind was born at a time when it was considered to be bad luck or whatever to be a southpaw so he became ambidextrous. Despite that however, he prefers his left hand and that was one of the surprises that he would produce during the fisticuffs that he and I inevitably got involved with in in our youth.
Ranjan was born in more enlightened times and so did not have to become ambidextrous. And to the best of my knowledge, he did not have quite the same kind of youth where scores were settled by fisticuffs.
Arvind and I also became reasonably accomplished boxers among other misguided things that we accomplished or failed to. And that brings me to why I chose to go to the movies earlier this afternoon.
The movie’s name Southpaw and description in the advertisement for it in the newspaper did it for me. One, the title itself and the other, that it was all about a boxer and the film’s obsession with boxing itself. I am partial to movies about boxing and boxers, as my readers would remember from my earlier reviews of movies with boxing in them.
The film does not have any recognisable to me, name in it other than Forest Whitaker. The other two factors however, persuaded me to take a chance. So, I dragged my rather uninterested partner in crime Ramesh to see it and the uninterested friend became very interested as the story started unfolding. And for me, it was an unforgettable experience.
This is a film on a boxer’s story unlike any other that I have seen. A simple story, well told and presented by all the actors involved under some very tight direction and editing. Excellent soundtrack and photography adds icing on the cake and two hours pass in a blur and you leave the theater wanting to see more of the story to unfold in a sequence.
Obviously, the weekend crowds have spread the word around and despite some lackluster promotion of the film, for instance, I did not see any trailer for it, the auditorium was almost full. Very surprising for a Monday afternoon show. I too now join the word of mouth promoters of the film and via this blog post, give it a full [rating=6] rating. Don’t miss it if you like stories about boxers and boxing.