Southpaw : Movie Review


Southpaw (2015) - Movie PosterIntimate domestic tragedy and the hard-hitting brutality of professional boxing collide in "Southpaw," a film that invites comparison to 2004's "Million Dollar Baby" and 2010's "The Fighter" but stands on its own as purely riveting drama. The feature writing debut of Kurt Sutter (TV's "Sons of Anarchy"), the picture casts Jake Gyllenhaal (2014's "Enemy") in a role as physically transformative as the one he played in 2014's "Nightcrawler," the shape-shifting actor trading greasy gauntness for ripped abs and lean muscles. Gyllenhaal's intensely committed dynamism meshes well with director Antoine Fuqua's (2014's "The Equalizer") uncompromising forthrightness even as the trajectory of the story leads straight into convention. Because the characters are so acutely observed and their struggles so empathetic, the ultimate familiarity of the narrative's destination hardly matters.

See Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com. for full review

Author : Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com.