Two unsatisfying movies put together

Rating: 7/10 (12 April 2009)

When I watched the Rocky-Movies as a youngster, I didn't like them. So I was hopeful, as I like boxing a bit, that this movie could entertain me more, although it caught some Oscars.
And it did, for the first time being. Until the big and sad drama begins, there is everything a good boxing film needs, showing the hunger which is necessary for a winner, likable characters, some problems with the family and so on. More interesting for me was that the story turned out to be about the Trainer, not so much about boxing or boxers. Trainer Frankie, played by Eastwood, is shown as a man with heart, the typical American cliché figure that has a rough skin and a soft core, both developed in his former life. Many other clichés are used to lead us into the right mood. The figure of the boy called Danger is somewhere artificial and serves only as an addendum to the picture of the family at Frankie's gym. Frankie's own family is not present, so he has adopted some losers as his family, as he is kind of a looser himself. The winners always leave him, because he is too worrying, he hates risks. His best friend, played superbly by Mr. Freeman (when isn't he superb only by presence ?) with wonderful calmness, behaves like Frankie's wife. Danger is the witless nephew or son, who is tolerated because he is harmless and poor.
But when the good son leaves, there is an occasion for Frankie to acquire a surrogate for his lost daughter, a dream for every father, because she willingly bounds her to his judgment without any questions, and looks up to him from the first moment, like every daddy wants to be adored. And she is also "a good girl", she isn't problematic like any other daughter you have to rise.
In some cases this part of the movie is in a way superficial, I wondered if Frankie's top fighter wouldn't have left him, would he have agreed to train Maggie ? And wouldn't have even an about 18 years working waitress have some friends or background ? Never mind, boxing girls must be kinda weird, so the audience is forced to enter Frankie's Island, a small universe among the rumbling environment, where the rules of existence and social live are completely blanked out. The rest of the world is hidden, only recalled when needed for the script. Not to mention the unbelievable speed of Maggie's evolution from a nerd to a top boxer.
This could have been a wonderful fairy tale about a synthetic family and wouldn't have needed any sad hospital drama, after we had romance, humor, and action. I, as an European, would have seen much rather any other conflicts or problems after the inevitable twist. Maybe the twist isn't really inevitable, after leading the girl to the title there are many possibilities to offer an interesting proceeding - even if you hope for an Oscar. You can even let her lose the fight, and not only because of the unfairness of that "Former bitch from Germany". I wonder for which reason this in many ways discriminatory denomination was used.
However, after the twist of fate is set, the movie (intentionally ?) retrieves from every potential it had before, and leads directly to a stereotype tragedy. When I and others here talk about clichés, up to this point they were used in an (for me) acceptable number, but from now until the end, the movie itself is a stereotype.
For me it was extremely annoying that they relativize the suffering of a human, lying in the hospital bed completely paralyzed, with the fact that "she had her chance". This is a rape of the reality, we all live at the moment and even if one had his/her chance, it would not be important for the current suffering. This semi-philosophical crap is something I've seen too often in US movies, it 's simply a lie to forget about life's inequity. I think its a lack of imagination not even to try to give such victims a reason to live.
I gave 9 Points for the first three quarters, the actors and the mood, minus 4 Points for the rest, plus 1 point for the courage to kill a working movie long before the closing credits.
And: I loved the Swank girl.