Southpaw

SOUTHPAW can't be called original: It ticks off every boxing film standard: the everyman fighter, the ultra-supportive wife, the Phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes storyline culminating in the fight of the century. Southpaw even features a hard-driving hip-hop soundtrack that meshes perfectly with jump-roping scenes and footwork-and-punching practice -- shot beautifully by director Antoine Fuqua -- and the requisite encouraging speech that inspires one man to dig deep for one last shot at redemption. They're all part of this movie, and we've seen them all before. 

And yet Southpaw is a tour-de-force, thanks in large part to outstanding performances from the cast, most notably an utterly transformed Gyllenhaal. He's ferocious and vulnerable and believable, sometimes all at once. See the movie for Gyllenhaal alone, though it helps that nearly all of his co-stars are also in fine form. He and McAdams share a great chemistry, and he clicks with Whitaker, too -- a crucial element in this genre. When the coach and his chastened pupil go to battle in Las Vegas for what may be the biggest fight of Billy's life, we want to be there with them to witness it all, even if we already know what will happen next.