An unexpected twist

Rating: 6/10 (15 July 2005)

This is by no means a bad film, it is a perfectly formed piece of cinema... if you like that sort of thing, and I did not.
Clint Eastwood is fine here but he is quite a limited actor, able only to play riffs on himself. Swank is of course excellent and Freeman does a good job of playing 'wise old man'... again. The plot is somewhat strange not content with being a normal sports movie (SPOILER) a huge cowpat is thrown into the narrative in which Swank becomes paralysed who ultimately forces Eastwood to kill her. For me this twist was on one hand very unexpected and on the other completely bizarre something like this could happen but in movies things should not happen for no reason. Tragedy is only entertaining if the characters damn themselves through their folly, not if they are damned by bad luck; then it just becomes depressing and meaningless. And I feel that the only reason this was done was to try and rise above the conventions of the genre; but what was created is a strange multi-headed beast which is very well made but it didn't quite work.