Jake Gyllenhaal 's the best performance ever

Rating: 9/10 (29 August 2015)

Well !
Born a decade or more before Jake Gyllenhaal, had the chance of watching him grow from his The October Sky days.
Saw him bloom in Source Code to a much higher level.
Jake's intensity, expressions including Christian Bailish dedication to the movie, in terms of training (Assisted by some CGI though) takes this whole performance to a whole new level. Ring side scenes are awesome, so is the court room scene as a distraught father.
If Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa set the benchmark for a Boxing Fighter flicks, undoubtedly Jake Gyllenhaal as Billy Hope surpassed it. I only hope he doesn't get typecast with this role and gets only Fighter Flicks in the future. He his versatile and hope he sticks to doing different roles.
Rachel McAdams in her brief appearance as Maureen Hope has done her bit much, much better than Talia Shire as Adrian in Rocky. I'll still rate her 'The Vow' as the number one performance yet. Antoine Fuqua could've given her little more reel time, this movie does have a potential for a Southpaw II, how could you include Rachel in there? that's for Todd Black to figure out.
That said Antoine Fuqua has done a fabulous job, Kurt Sutter could've gone easy on the Melodrama and made the audience less ...what is the word? Schmaltzy !!
No wonder i've rated it 9/10 on the IMDb.com