A Classic

Rating: 8/10 (25 January 2005)

The title is deceptive. It could be a Betty Grable picture - it once was a Priscilla Lane/Ronnie Regan movie - or a piece of show-biz hype about triumph over adversity. In fact, for it's first half that is exactly what it is and if the plot seems formulaic, Eastwood imbues it with such a feeling for character and milieu that cliché is the last thing you are likely to think of. Then about mid-way it takes a darker turn. Guilt and redemption come to the fore and the up-beat triumphalism of what has gone before is jettisoned in favor of another of Eastwood's bleak studies of the American malaise. Not a bad thing given his skill in handling this kind of material, though you may come away from the film admiring it rather more than you actually like it.
As a director Eastwood has never been one to blind you with technique; this is an old-fashioned movie in the very best sense. The performances and the script drive it and even when it's at it's most austere the closest Eastwood comes to being 'cinematic' is a series of slow dissolves to blackness. And those performances are very fine indeed. If Hilary Swank fits her part of the trailer-trash hick who wants to be a boxer like the proverbial glove she, nevertheless, seems to find shadings and depth in her character that lifts her out of the ordinary.
Morgan Freeman, virtually monosyllabic as an aging ex-boxer, conveys more with a look than most actors could do with a barrage of words. He is so much in character here that even his clothes seem to fit him like a second skin. But ultimately the film belongs to Eastwood in every sense. As a director he has developed a classic style that is the very antithesis of what modern movies are about; as an actor he has learned how to inhabit the character he plays with effortless skill. His performance here may well be the best thing he has done on screen, certainly on par with his William Munny in "Unforgiven" and this dark, sad, forgiving film bears mention in the same breath as both "Unforgiven" and last year's "Mystic River".