Southpaw, The Fighter, Real Steel ... in these troubled times we can take comfort in a raft of films about battling underdogs
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody that Eminem is making another film ? after making such a splash in 8 Mile eight years ago he's been soundly overtaken in the acting rapper stakes by everyone from Ludacris to Common to Lil Bow Wow ? and nor should it be a surprise that he's got his eyes on a boxing film. As reported yesterday, Eminem's comeback vehicle will be Southpaw, the story of a boxer trying to fight his way back to glory after the world stops believing in him.
It isn't a surprise for a couple of reasons. First is Eminem himself. This is clearly a genre that he has great affection for ? 8 Mile was basically a boxing movie where all the fighting just happened to be replaced with scenes of people saying how fat they thought the other one's mother was. And, like 8 Mile, Southpaw will be loosely autobiographical. Writer Kurt Sutter admits that he's been in talks with Eminem for the last seven years and, if you replace the "after the world stops believing in him" section of Southpaw's premise with "after he released two comparatively underperforming albums in the mid-noughties" then that couldn't become clearer.
The second reason is that we're all about to be deluged by boxing films. Frederick Wiseman's documentary Boxing Gym has already made a splash on the festival circuit, but the real catalyst is David O Russell's The Fighter, which picked up six Golden Globe nominations this week. And whether it's a coincidence or not, we're soon going to have to put up with the likes of Eminem in Southpaw, Al Pacino in a film about the 1980 "No M�s" fight between Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran and ? perhaps most heartbreakingly of all ? Hugh Jackman in Real Steel, a futuristic boxing film about some angry robots.
But then boxing movies always tend to do well when world affairs are this uncertain. Most of them ? from The Fighter to Rocky to Cinderella Man to The Champ ? deal with a scrappy loser who has to literally fight himself out of a desperate situation to glory. And in a time when half the world seems to be perpetually teetering on the brink of economic catastrophe, these are the kind of underdog that the public likes to get behind.
Plus, boxing movies are irresistible to actors. If they're heart-swelling and redemptive ? or, even better, if they end in misery and self-destruction ? then the films offer actors a rare chance to dance up and down the spectrum of emotions while proving to the public (and the awards voters) that they're a serious credible concern. It's why Will Smith made Ali, and Russell Crowe made Cinderella Man, and Denzel Washington made The Hurricane, and Hilary Swank made Million Dollar Baby. It might even be why Robert Downey Jr turned Sherlock Holmes into a jumped-up cagefighter. Even Meg Ryan had a pop at one with Against the Ropes. Admittedly it was an utterly clueless pop, but the intention was there.
All of which is fine, of course. But with such a glut of boxing films on the horizon, it's inevitable that audiences will cry overkill before they all have a chance to be released. Hopefully this'll happen after Eminem's film is out, though, because I'm not sure anybody could stomach the inevitable loosely autobiographical film about a man fighting back from the disappointing opening weekend box office gross of his loosely autobiographical boxing film.
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