over-hyped and overrated

Rating: 5/10 (30 March 2005)

Having read all the gush this movie engendered and being somewhat of a fan of clint eastwood i was quite eager to see this movie but i have to say i was sorely disappointed. Why? Well....i hate to say it but it boils down to another lame attempt at a Hollywood tearjerker. Maggie's hillbilly family are so caricatured that they were laughable. Her mother commits the ultimate sin for a Hollywood movie -she's overweight. I don't understand how Maggie could have lost her million dollar fight. Surely her opponent would have been disqualified? But of course that wouldn't fit in well with the sympathy we're supposed to feel for her. Also, i was at the movie with a couple of people who are physiotherapists and have experience of quadriplegia and they found the hospital scenes unbelievable. The movie seems to be full of scenes and depictions which serve the sole purpose of being plot devices and which have no grounding in reality. For me this detracted from the movie as a whole. So while it was an entertaining enough story it certainly wasn't the masterpiece that some have made it out to be.