Great acting, strange emphasis (spoilers within)

Rating: Null/10 (7 June 2005)

Granted I haven't read the collection of short stories the 70 year old that wrote what this movie is based on did. Being that they were just that, short stories, I doubt that the entire film's materials was taken from just one of them.
I found that this was a boxing movie that didn't focus much on boxing. They explained it by saying she won all her matches in the first round. Has there ever existed such a boxer? Not even Rocky was that good! The disappointment for me, however, doesn't come from the lack of boxing footage, but from the lack of story explanation. What happened between Eastwood's character and his wife? They divorced, separated or what? Why does his daughter hate him so? Why does Hollywood feel the need to continue to mock anyone of religious faith, including having the (Episcopal?) priest using bad language and calling Eastwood's character a liar for saying he was writing his daughter, when the audience is shown he was writing her and that his letters were returned.
Why does he decide to murder her (assist her suicide) and take off? Where on earth was the hospital staff and why did no one hear the noise of the monitors while he was killing her? Supposedly a clue is dropped that he went to the diner that served lemon pie without it coming from the can, but why? Because he went against what the priest told him to do and felt that was the closest to heaven he could get after '2' unforgivable sins? A lot of questions, but not many answers. But then I guess that's what film making is about these days. Pathos above moral values. Emotions rather than any logical sequence or rhyme or reason.
When Clint Eastwood was asked about why the assisted suicide scene in an interview, he stated that the movie wasn't making an argument for it. But it sure wasn't making one against it. It even seemed that Morgan Freeman's character looked at that decision as a good one as he wrote the letter to Eastwood's daughter.
In a year full of weak movie entries (the fact that idiot Michael Moore even tried to get consideration for best picture showed that HE knew it was a weak field), this film was a cut above the other mediocrity, but it's lack of moral values and degradation of life and the importance of what God thinks brings this down to one of the most mediocre movies to receive as many Oscar nominations as it did that I can remember.
See it by all means, but be prepared for disappointment if you are a person of faith or care about life.