A low key thoughtful piece that pleases by turning away from what we expect

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2005)

Frankie Dunn is a grizzled boxing trainer who tries his best to protect his fighters from the pressure of the big shot and prepare them as well as he can. When his most recent hope abandons him for a title shot Frankie is downcast to the point where he humours a hopeless gym regular, Maggie Fitzgerald by agreeing to train her. After a short time her potential is obvious and Frankie starts her out in minor bouts where she is so successful at knocking her opponents out that she struggles to get more bouts arranged. With the big time beckoning, can Maggie continue this trend to her title shot and can Frankie trust her enough to let her try?
My plot summary makes this sound like a very tired and clichéd sports movie then that is intentional because that it how it sounded to me when I heard about it; having seen Girlfight recently I wondered why I should bother with what sounds essentially like a retread of that. And for the majority of the film this is what it appeared to be albeit it a pretty professional and enjoyable genre film. However at some point during the film it moves away from the genre formula and becomes something much more interesting. I won't spoil anything but the plot becomes much more low key and interesting  suffice to say this is not just a clichéd sports movie. However this doesn't mean that it is a brilliant film and I must admit to being a little bewildered by the high praise that everyone seems to be heaping onto it. Lets not forget that it is a genre film for the vast majority and only stands out due to consistent good touches and the different direction at the end making it better. It is all interesting and surprisingly low key but don't expect to be totally blown away  it isn't that sort of film.
The acting is very good and I would suggest that Swank is looking at a second Best Actress Oscar for this simply because we is as good early on as she is at the end and adds character to her performance  a whole history with her family build in just one or two scenes, thanks mainly to her performance. Eastwood is the same  a clichéd character made better by hints of deeper issues; I would have liked more time with him in the film to get to know what has brought him here, but he is good considering the limits he is working within. Freeman is also limited to a very small role but is still pretty good although at times his narration was a bit too much and I felt it was over used  a small mercy was that, when the film became most thoughtful, the narration is significantly dropped to a minimum and we are trusted to think for ourselves.
Overall this is not a perfect film but it is a pretty good one. It is 70% the sports cliché that you expect it to be and 30% something different that is a lot darker, low key and interesting. This is an uneasy mix and doesn't totally work  and changing 30% of a genre movie isn't enough to make me cheer from the rooftops about it but I did enjoy it nonetheless.