Southpaw (2015) - Movie Review

Southpaw is a by the books boxing/similar genre movie. It has the usual cliches and is predictable and all that. But all of that is OK because I don't really care about that if the execution is alright.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the champion boxer. I gotta tell ya, this dude is following Bale's footsteps when it comes to physical transformation. Not long ago we got the skinny looking weird version in NightCrawler and now this fully buffed boxer. Gyllenhaal continues to impress me with his acting too, the dude was great yet again. He was intense, he was broken, and you really feel for him. Someone else who was really great was the daughter. I was really surprised by her and witnessing a great child acting is kinda rare. Rachel McAdams and Forest Whitaker also delivered great performances, their best in a while. 50 cents was just OK though.

Since the movie follows the typical style of this genre, you get the initial fame, then something happens and there is the downfall area and lastly the ultimate revival with a montage. Since the acting was great, I really felt for the character in the downfall time, and things kept on getting worse. And when revival came, I was rooting for him even though I knew what will happen. That's good character development.

The boxing scenes were handled very well. They were really raw with sweat and blood and you could feel the punches. I also loved that some scenes were in POV, giving you a better boxer's perspective.

All in all, it was a great film. I had a good time with it. If you like this genre, then this is a definite watch.

8/10

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