Jake Gyllenhaal (Life, Everest) continues to take on roles that, seemingly, are each more challenging than his previous. I don’t know if another actor under 50 has been snubbed as frequently as Gyllenhaal regarding Academy Award nominations for acting. To date, his only nomination is for 2005’s Brokeback Mountain. However, he has been the odd man out with several other roles, most notably in Southpaw and, particularly, Nightcrawler. While I would put his performance in David Gordon Green’s (All the Real Girls, Undertow) Stronger as one of his top six performances of all time, it may not be in his top three or four. While he was terrific, this movie did not captivate me in the same way that films like Nightcrawler, Southpaw, Nocturnal Animals, Life, Love and Other Drugs, or Brothers did. But it should have. This was based on a true story. It had the sentimentality of an average person overcoming the odds and becoming a symbol of patriotism all wrapped into one. And while this movie was very good, it wasn’t even Gyllenhaal’s best performance about a character overcoming adversity. That belongs to Southpaw. But just because the movie wasn’t amazing doesn’t mean it was not very good. It was.