Manages to depress you and raise your spirits over the course of 2 hours..

Rating: 7/10 (3 August 2015)

Southpaw drinking game, take a shot every time you hear Jake Gyllenhaal say 'Baby'.. seriously try it, he says that more than Vin Diesel says the word family.
Southpaw follows Billy 'The Great' Hope, another powerhouse performance from Jake Gyllenhaal. He has been on a role recently, especially with his role in Nightcrawler, and his performance in this film certainly doesn't disappoint. Hope is a boxer who is at the top of his game, he is the reigning Light Heavyweight champion and seems like an unstoppable force. After a fight breaks out between him and a rival boxer, Hope's wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) is shot and killed. What follows is a downward spiral in his life including the loss of his wealth, his manager and even his daughter. An ex boxer played by Forrest Whittaker seems like his only hope at getting back in the ring and gaining his life back. Now, the plot is very simple and it is something we have seen before, the whole cast however, especially Gyllenhaal and Whittaker draw us straight in. Southpaw has a VERY slow start. Don't go to this film expecting a straight up boxing film because that isn't what you will get. When we get to see the boxing action it is great, especially the intense last fight, but Southpaw is more a film about loss and redemption.
If that sounds good chances are you will find a lot to like about this film. Gyllenhaal manages to be likable even at the times you don't feel like you should like him, heck even 50 Cent as the Don King-like douchebag manager who only cares about himself manages to have a likability about him which is hard to pull off. Feels kind of horrible to say this is a film.i enjoyed because its almost like me saying i enjoyed seeing a man lose everything.. but in fact what i enjoyed more was his path to redemption and seeing him gain it all back over time because Hope can be a relatable character. You see that he has become the man he was before and is capable of looking after his daughter afterall and seeing how he interacted with Rachel McAdams before the film kicked off helped us see this. In the end, the boxing was great, the cast was stellar. As much as Jake Gyllenhaal deserves an Oscar nomination, if he didn't get one for Nightcrawler he wont get one here. Not a perfect film and at times its hard to get in to, but well worth the watch.
7.5/10