Southpaw
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: July 24, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
57
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
22
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 23, 2015
The experience of Southpaw is rather like seeing the truth behind the cliches, revived in all their pain and power to surprise. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirJul 24, 2015
Southpaw is a tremendous accomplishment of mainstream cinematic craft, a near-perfect match of director, material and star. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 23, 2015
While Southpaw will surprise almost no one who has seen a fair amount of boxing movies, Fuqua’s direction and the excellent performances keep the action humming. Read full review
88
ObserverRex ReedJul 21, 2015
What makes this one different is the dedication, commitment and sincerity the star brings to every aspect of the role. This is a pugilist with a heart. Read full review
80
TimeMary PolsJul 24, 2015
Southpaw is a foreshadowing machine, but it works, movingly, because Fuqua (Training Day) tempers the melodrama inherent in screenwriter Kurt Sutter’s (Sons of Anarchy) script with a muted tone and clear confidence in his cast. Read full review
77
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeJun 17, 2015
Southpaw is so simultaneously entertaining and unsurprising that it could go straight to ESPN Classic, but if these are the extremes it takes for certain people to notice that, hey, that guy from “Bubble Boy” has turned into a heck of an actor, then so be it. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJul 25, 2015
In "Rocky," it was less about beating Apollo Creed than showing grit, earning respect, and getting the girl. Fundamentally, Southpaw isn't much different. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJul 24, 2015
What keeps this cornball business from getting out of hand is the commitment of Gyllenhaal, whose performance is fierce and muscular, in and out of the ring. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittJul 23, 2015
While Southpaw doesn’t do anything innovative with the punch-drunk formula — there’s even a rousing final match, leaving you exhausted by the end — Gyllenhaal and Whitaker are real heavyweights who give the feature a winning combo. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJul 23, 2015
For the most part, however, Southpaw is a terrific boxing movie, with choreographed violence emphasizing the sport's speed rather than its poetry in slow motion. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoJul 23, 2015
Southpaw enters the long filmography of boxing flicks, and puts up a surprisingly good fight. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungJun 16, 2015
Southpaw sticks to tried-and-tested genre rules, yet an edgy cast — led by formidable leading man Jake Gyllenhaal — keeps the story in sharp focus. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJul 22, 2015
The sharp performances and committed cinematography elevate this stock drama to something beyond routine. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 23, 2015
This is a genre with especially sturdy bones, and when Southpaw connects, which is more often than you might expect, you feel it down to your toes. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJul 23, 2015
Fuqua is a proficient action director, and the boxing scenes deliver plenty of whomp. But the music-saturated scenes involving the media, the law and a turncoat friend played by Curtis (“50 Cent”) Jackson are trying to appeal to fans of “Empire,” not “Raging Bull.” Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 23, 2015
Does it succeed? Sort of. It helps if you don't mind your boxing movies made up of massive granite chunks of previous boxing movies. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 23, 2015
Amazingly, Gyllenhaal never cheats on his character's sense of dignity. Against the odds, he keeps you in Billy's corner. That's a champ. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJul 24, 2015
Southpaw has at least one thing its predecessors don't: It's got Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role, and that makes a big difference. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJul 23, 2015
Southpaw is so logic-defying it takes on a Frankenstein life of its own, especially with as energetic and focused an action maestro as Fuqua ("Training Day," "The Equalizer") in charge. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 23, 2015
It’s a win for Mr. Gyllenhaal, while the movie loses out to its clichés. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJul 23, 2015
The plotting is somehow both flat-footed and operatic in its absurdity. Character arcs are tangled, flattened and foreshortened. Common sense is knocked silly. But Mr. Fuqua has never been a director to let ridiculousness get in the way of visceral action. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghJul 23, 2015
Southpaw is all about the fist. There’s no delicate footwork here, no lingering grace notes. It’s a film played entirely in power chords. Read full review
60
EmpireDamon WiseJul 21, 2015
Don’t get too caught up in the all-too-familiar plot, just savour Jake Gyllenhaal’s powerhouse performance in a riches-to-rags-to-redemption sports movie that punches well above its weight. Read full review
60
Total FilmPaul BradshawJul 21, 2015
The script keeps its gloves on but Gyllenhaal gives his all, notching up one of his very best performances. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJul 24, 2015
Gyllenhaal is one of the most gifted actors of his generation and, along with Joaquin Phoenix, he takes more chances than just about any of them. He deserves a movie that risks as much as he does. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJul 23, 2015
Gyllenhaal’s Southpaw performance is great, but for reasons unrelated to his physique. He’s thrilling to watch and the only unpredictable thing in a two-hours-plus movie where you can count on one hand the number of moments that aren’t hand-me-downs from better boxing films like "Rocky," "Raging Bull," and "Fat City." Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerJul 23, 2015
The melodrama is uncomfortably high; the checked-box plot is manipulative. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jul 22, 2015
Physically speaking, the transformation is as impressive as the one Gyllenhaal underwent a year ago to embody the gaunt, wiry sociopath of "Nightcrawler." But was this character, a boxer battling the myriad conventions of his genre, really worth the training regimen that brought him to life? Read full review
50
HitfixGregory EllwoodJul 22, 2015
Unfortunately, Southpaw descends into a tedious exercise of formulaic filmmaking that leaves you feeling worse for Gyllenhaal and Whitaker than the characters they play on screen. Read full review
50
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekJul 21, 2015
Southpaw is an exhausting brutalist melodrama, but if nothing else, Fuqua always works with fine actors, and he's got a passel of them here. Read full review
50
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezJul 21, 2015
A very routine twelve rounds of tragedy, resilience and redemption, the boxing film Southpaw is a conventionally told dramaturgy high on intensity, but low on human insight or novel ways to tell a familiar story. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnJul 21, 2015
Gyllenhaal's alarmingly effective presence is enough to act circles around the soapy narrative of a fallen athlete's comeback so tightly that it crumbles in the very first act. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 21, 2015
The story arc is entirely too familiar to sustain the two-hours-plus length, the violence, gore and language are the only elements that lift it from the weepy melodrama that Southpaw wants to be into “Raging Bull” territory. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonJun 17, 2015
Jake Gyllenhaal brings likeability and commitment to a raw role, but despite a strong supporting cast director Antoine Fuqua never quite transcends the proceedings’ gritty, melodramatic blandness. A lot of care, heart and craft have been thrown at awfully familiar material. Read full review
50
VarietyJustin ChangJun 17, 2015
The undeniable intensity of Gyllenhaal’s bulked-up, Method-mumbling performance may leave you feeling more pummeled than convinced in this heavy-handed tale of redemption, in which director Antoine Fuqua once more demonstrates his fascination with codes of masculine aggression, extreme violence and not much else. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJul 24, 2015
I veered between being awed and appalled, though mostly the latter. The trouble with Gyllenhaal is that he shows little range, not from role to role but within roles. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyJul 23, 2015
Southpaw asks both too much of Gyllenhaal and not enough – he’s being forced to build a whole character out of scraps, sawdust, and horrendous clichés. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJul 22, 2015
When boxing cliches work, they can deliver a knockout. When they don’t, as in Southpaw, we get just punch-drunk. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJul 21, 2015
Like a "Raging Bull" that’s been clocked one too many times in the head, Antoine Fuqua’s blood-simple boxing melodrama is so loaded with obviousness, it gets more pained groans from the audience than the guys in the ring. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle SmithJul 23, 2015
The finest 1947 boxing picture of 2015 is here: Southpaw, a film that’s gruntingly insistent on its clichés. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJake ColeJul 21, 2015
Each battle scar in the film is a testament to a vaguely but nonetheless forcefully defined notion of masculinity. Read full review
37
Washington PostAnn HornadayJul 23, 2015
Southpaw may be rote, predictable and mawkish, but none of those faults lie in its star. Even when he looks like an unholy mess, he transcends the movie he’s in. Read full review
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