Johnny we hardly knew ya.

Rating: 7/10 (11 March 2006)

This is a moving yet frustrating film about the short career of a female boxer trained by an old embittered manager/trainer who still feels responsible for his former-protégé-now-business-partner's loss of an eye many years before. The three main characters are played, respectively, by Hillary Swank, Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman -- all powerhouse actors. The problem is that none of them has much to work with: the plot feels more like an outline than a finished story. Perhaps Eastwood, who also directed, was trying to convey the idea that in the ethically dubious world of professional boxing people just don't know each other very well, or want to. However, that shallowness of character makes it awfully hard for us, as viewers, to identify with the potentially very dramatic events that occur. Hillary Swank again puts in a stellar performance as the androgynous woman who remains persistently feminine despite outward appearances, just as she did in "Boys Don't Cry." And one wonders throughout, as so often ("Levity" in particular comes to mind) why Morgan Freeman doesn't get top billing when he is the top character and top performer in every respect.