Jake Gyllenhaal makes an impressive transformation to become Billy Hope and Rachel McAdams is fabulous as his wife, Maureen. But aside from a few great performances, this movie is so hackneyed, so clichéd, so formulaic as to be an utter waste of time. Every fight-movie trope is here: big success, big failure, return to roots, and redemption. Dialogue was impossible to hear, editing was choppy.

If you like boxing and like Horatio Alger stories this is for you. I unfortunately don't like the blood, violence and overall morale decay of how the basing industry is portrayed. I gave this 3 stars for the acting.

good show but a little to long

I enjoyed Southpaw. The boxing sequences were great. Fuqua did a good job handling a lot of talented actors. Horner's score was very good. The crowd applauded and cheered multiple times during the fight sequence at the end. That's never a bad thing.