..a real winner...

Rating: 10/10 (9 March 2011)

I'm caught again without knowing anything about this great film. I had no idea what it was about, but pleasantly surprised that it presents a documentary on a topic I knew/and/know very little about: women's boxing league. So many great reviews have been posted here, there is little else to write.
The entire film is done with perfection: the dark lighting of the gym makes the incidents that happens in it believable; it is the reflection of the misery most of the characters bring to it. I don't agree with some reviewers who say the story lagged and was incomplete: the script was gut-wrenching, because it lead one to believe "Maggie" )Hillary Swank) is going to win her life-long dream. "Frank" (Clint Eastwppd) has begun to believe he has won redemption for whatever he has done to cause all those letters to be returned. "Scrap-Iron" is content to live in a place where he began a journey to a lost title, but holds no bitterness against the man who could have done more for him to win his victory. "Maggie" is relentless, and successful, to have "Frank" manage and train her - the other characters are the types of people you'd expect to find in the gym. Bullies taunting a totally inept boy who also dreams of becoming a title-holder; "Scrap-Iron's" defense of him brings him complete peace with the realization he is in the right place. "Billie, the Blue Bear's" resentment (and realization she has met her match) brutally illegal attack on "Maggie" is completely unexpected (but believable), and provides the reason for "Frank" to do "the right thing" and move-on. "Scrap-Iron's" realization that he must keep the gym operating, for "Frank"s return, solved that whole problem, and brought viewers such relief that "Maggie" almost accomplished her dream - and left her misery in a hard-won peace.
Script, directing and casting couldn't have been better. Every actor/actress was brilliant. Although it brought me to a point to think about incidents of pain and happiness in my own life, it wasn't with more pain......that's just what happened. I would recommend this film to everyone, because it has a blueprint of what life is about. I'll watch it again......