A solid but really mixed and ultimately unsatisfying effort

Rating: 6/10 (12 March 2005)

The first two thirds of this film were excellent, with very good boxing/training action and lively performances from Swank and Freeman, and Eastwood even cracking a joke or two. The last third, when the melodrama hits, it hits like a tornado that sucks all the air out of the room and neglects to fill the vacuum. This movie was saved by the acting, but it was fairly chock full of clichés, and the fact that she walked into the gym supposedly after winning a fight throwing punches that off-kilter gave it a believability gap that took a while to get over. If they had started the film without her having stated she had won a fight, the story wouldn't have changed much (well, the clichés would have been a tad more obvious) and my believability would not have been so challenged for the first half hour.
The last third of the film, where the well-known controversy exists, is incredibly long and tedious even in comparison to other melodramas. Without the ending, I would have given it an eight or nine for the lively Swank performance that, like Sylvester Stallone in the first Rocky film, took an old fashioned formula and made something really great out of it. The ending, however, dragged that all the way down to a six. I don't think I could watch it again without turning it off after that key defining event, but if I did, I'd end up watching a much more enjoyable movie. The movie had heart up until that point, but then it sold its soul.