History will probably not remember this because he missed earning an Academy Award nomination for his first performance, and he may miss out on this one as well. Still, the physical transformation from Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance as sickly, twisted reporter Lou Bloom in 2014’s fantastically crafted Nightcrawler to the lean, mean, fighting machine Billy Hope in 2015’s Southpaw is remarkable. As people watch either or both of these movies in the future, they will likely forget that he filmed them back-to-back. But aside from how he changed the physical look of his body for each role, his acting in these films might be two of the best of his career, and they continue to hit all the right buttons, save for The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I’ll start with Southpaw: the less you know, the better off I think you will be. If you haven’t seen it, I will list my overall score here. I suggest not reading any further until after you’ve seen the movie, or if the surprise factor isn’t something you are interested in. I’ll let you know when I add spoilers to this review. I would give Southpaw an overall score of 87.5/100.

I did not know much about the film beyond what I saw in the previews until I listened to a Gyllenhaal radio interview on ESPN Radio. I learned that a twist in the movie occurred very early. I would never have guessed the twist, and it changed the entire film’s trajectory. You knew at that moment that this “boxing movie” was about to go in a completely different direction. The movie starts with Billy Hope (Gyllenhaal) preparing for a match. He has a record of 42-0 and is the undisputed junior middleweight champion of the world. He has his headphones blasting music to pump him up. He’s got his hands taped. His tattooed body is lean and muscular. His abs look like he could be the cover model of Men’s Fitness. He exudes confidence.

Maureen (Rachel McAdams – Midnight in Paris, The Vow) plays his wife. Dressed in a magnificent dress that accentuates her body’s assets, Mo also seems, at first, like a trophy wife. It doesn’t take us long to learn that she certainly is not. There is a deep, committed, loving relationship between the two that has spanned some 20 years. Together, they have an eight-year-old daughter named Alice (Clare Foley – Sinister, Win Win). Mo and Alice mean everything to Billy. Billy has earned tens of millions of dollars through his career, but he’ll be the first to tell you that all he does is fight. Mo makes all the decisions for him, for her, and for Alice. It doesn’t take very long to realize how vital these two foster children are to each other. And, of course, with every boxing movie, you need at least one villain. Miguel “Magic” Escobar (Miguel Gomez – television’s The Strain) serves that role here. Miguel is an up-and-coming Colombian boxer who wants his chance against Billy and is willing to do whatever is necessary to get his fight. To Billy’s credit, he’s willing to fight Miguel wherever and whenever, but it is his manager, Jordan (a very convincing 50 Cent), who tells him the time is right because the money isn’t right. The first 30 minutes of this movie are riveting, and while you don’t know exactly which road this movie will go down, you are excited to be part of its ride.

The middle of the movie was a little clunky, and my mind drifted. I thought about other boxing movies and where this movie was likely to finish compared to them. Despite how into it I was for the first 30-40 minutes, I convinced myself that, regardless of what happened, it would not outrank Cinderella Man. Then, I started thinking about the Rocky movies (this movie did have similarities to Rocky II). As much as I enjoyed the Rocky movies (especially Rocky IV), outside of the 1976 original (which was a masterpiece), the other films in the franchise were utterly unrealistic (especially Rocky IV). If I break Southpaw into thirds, the first third felt very realistic, and the final third felt somewhat realistic. The middle third could have used some fine-tuning; despite the tremendous Training Day, a director slightly more accomplished than Antoine Fuqua (Tears of the Sun, Shooter) could have cleaned up some of this. I favor Fuqua’s movies (except maybe The Equalizer and Olympus Has Fallen). Southpaw had the potential to be one of the best films of 2015. However, a director with more experience than Fuqua could have handled tying up loose ends better.

***Start of Spoilers***

I felt the movie stalled for a bit after Maureen’s death. I worried it would never right itself and grew even more worried when Forrest Whitaker’s (Panic Room, The Crying Game) character showed up. For as good an actor as Whitaker is, I wondered what he would add as a boxing trainer for a down-and-out boxer. I felt that the “redemption story” has been overplayed… especially in sports movies… especially in boxing and football movies. But Whitaker’s portrayal of Tick Wills was very even keel. He didn’t upstage or even attempt to upstage Gyllenhaal. This was Gyllenhaal’s vehicle all the way, and much like Billy needed Tick to help him accomplish what he needed to, I felt Gyllenhaal needed Whitaker to land one of the top 10, if not the top 5, performances of the year. Whitaker reeled Gyllenhaal in just like his character reeled Billy in. But the period after Maureen’s death, when Billy connected with Tick, was uneven.

Billy’s grieving over Maureen was what you would expect it to be after a man loses his love of 20+ years. However, where was his support system? As a world boxing champion, he’s going to have people at his beck and call. This was shown. But after she is shot and killed, we are supposed to believe that a crowd of over 100 people couldn’t identify Maureen’s shooter. We are then supposed to believe that he is just okay with the investigation, even though it did not identify the assailant. We are then supposed to believe that Billy will be able to continue his life without any resources to help him through this trauma.

On top of that, is the audience supposed to believe that he is ready to fight again amidst all of this trauma? He was in no shape, mentally, emotionally, or physically, to compete in the match that stripped him of his belt. However, I still think Fuqua and writers Kurt Sutter and Richard Wenk needed something more to send him deeper into his depression than stripping him of all his wealth, his home, and Alice, the only other person in his life who matters to him. This man had more anger issues than anyone else you’ll see on screen this year, yet he seemed to allow a lot of this to happen without so much as a fight. I admit he was beaten up (pardon the pun) and not himself, but I think this would bring out his anger even more. A guy whose wife described him as “getting off” when he gets hit over and over in the ring is just going to lie down as his life is torn from underneath him? And then, while he’s in free fall, we are expected to believe he can stroll through society without being identified as a major celebrity. It was a lot to assume.

But as clunky as the script was, Gyllenhaal could bring the audience through it. This film was just over two hours long. That’s not a lot of time to get a character from the pinnacle of his life down to depths lower than any one person can go through alone, back and then back for a chance to recapture his glory. It would be effortless to rush parts because you are trying to do so much. While it would have helped to know how much time passed between a few of the scenes, it wasn’t essential in the end. The period between Maureen’s death and the movie’s final fight could have been six months or two hours. We aren’t explicitly told, so we aren’t sure. But it is safe to assume the time was closer to six months. And also had to be because it would have been tough to age Alice for two years. And the development of Gyllenhaal’s character during that period worked for me. There were enough scenes (some short, some long) intermingled with his emotional and mental transformation that made it work. And for as much doubt as I had about Trick (if for nothing else because of when he was introduced, coupled with the fact of what he could offer that we haven’t seen in other boxing movies), Whitaker made it work and showed, once again, why he has an Academy Award (The Last King of Scotland) in his trophy case.

***End of Spoilers***

Through the first seven months of the year, I’ve seen two movies that will end up in my Top 10 of 2015. They are Ex-Machina and Southpaw. I do not doubt that other good/great movies have been released (i.e., Mad Max: Fury Road) that I haven’t seen. But we know the crop of great movies is released at the end of the year. So I have high hopes for 2015. It has been about what I have expected so far. I’m not comparing this movie to Foxcatcher (which I recommend, but many people hated it), but it does have that same element of darkness. Southpaw isn’t nearly as slow or maddening as Foxcatcher, but if you go in thinking that it’s going to have tons of boxing, you’ll be disappointed. Much like the movie The Wrestler didn’t have a ton of actual wrestling scenes, Southpaw doesn’t have a ton of boxing scenes. At one point, I started to question whether I would even call it a sports movie. But then the pace quickened, and we got our lead character back in the ring.

There are great boxing movies out there. Cinderella Man, The Fighter, Rocky, Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby, Hurricane, and Girl Fight all come to mind. An absolutely fantastic movie that is MMA, not boxing, and a definite must-see is Warrior. Despite its flaws, Southpaw ranks right up there with the best of these. Gyllenhaal’s Billy Hope is a character you root for, whereas Gomez’s Escobar is a perfect antagonist. The excellent acting (including Foley, who may have given the best performance by any child actor in 2015 – she was just great). In addition, Southpaw had fantastic cinematography, great score, and efforts to make up for the film’s defects allowed me to get past some of the less realistic parts (i.e., when Billy says to Jon Jon, “Thanks for taking me in” two minutes before Jon Jon drops him off at the gym and says, “If you need me for anything, you know how to reach me.” Huh?). There was just a clunky, undisciplined middle stanza of the movie that, if fixed, could have taken this movie from great to excellent.

Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 9.5/10
Character Chemistry 8.5/10
Acting 9.5/10
Screenplay 7.5/10
Directing  8/10
Cinematography 9/10 (possibly the most realistic boxing fight sequence I’ve seen on film)
Sound 10/10 (James Horner’s final score + a great song written for this movie by Eminem + the most realistic in-ring boxing sounds)
Hook and Reel 9/10 (grabs you early…fades in the middle a tad…but brings you right back in…I was on the edge of my seat for the final fight and was uncertain how the match would end)
Universal Relevance 8/10
87.5%

B+

Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie

• Warrior
• Creed
• The Fighter
• Rocky
• The Wrestler