There is a moment in Southpaw when a broken Jake Gyllenhaal, struggling to win back his self-worth, tells his little girl Laila, “I’m gonna fight again.”

Her eyes light up. Dad comes home with his face buckled and bloodied, but she understands. This is what he does.

Southpaw breaks no new ground in the boxing movie genre, but it is gritty and compelling. Gyllenhaal’s physical transformation from everyday man to a hulking light-heavyweight had the Internet on fire a few months ago. He pulls off the role of a fighter expertly, but he also demonstrates his acting chops in a movie that is decidedly dark and heavy.

Like many boxing films, it’s a story of redemption. There are the stereotypes, too: the fighter’s desperate background, his gorgeous, conflicted wife, the ascetic old trainer and the angst of fighting one more time.

Where the film earns legitimacy is through the real-life boxing figures who waft in and out. They include former champion Victor Ortiz, referee Tony Weeks, promoter Lou Di Bella, announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr and the commentary team of Jim Lampley and Roy Jones Jr, one of the greatest boxers of the last 50 years.

Rapper 50 Cent has a leading role and his portrayal as a devious promoter is bang on and doubtless drawn from a world he knows well. His boxing promotions  company just went bust.

If there’s a downer, it is the over wrought, exaggerated fight scenes. Boxing is dramatic enough without the need to ham it up, but Southpaw can’t help itself. It goes down this road emphatically.

Gyllenhaal fights, and lives, through a haze of blood and gore and torment. It’s hard not to warm to him as he picks himself up again and again.

Boxing is fortunate in that it has inspired many celebrated films, such as Raging Bull, Rocky, The Fighter, Million Dollar Baby and When We Were Kings.

Thanks primarily to Gyllenhaal’s supreme method acting, Southpaw is definitely a top contender.

Don’t be surprised if he is in the running for an Oscar.

(The film opens at Ster-Kinekor cinemas this weekend).