Good Start, Horrible Ending....

Rating: 7/10 (1 August 2005)

After hearing all the hype of this movie, the awards it's won, etc., I finally took a moment to sit down and watch it, expecting a beyond wonderful flick. Afterall, Eastwood's previous "The Bridges of Madison County" hadn't been that bad.
The movie starts off, explaining boxing through the eyes of an ex-boxer, Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris (the marvelous Morgan Freeman) who now works for Eastwood's character, Frankie Dunn, as a janitor in his gym. After Eastwood gets dumped by his current boxing protégé, he reluctantly ends up coaching Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) in women's boxing.
The girl seemingly has every odd against her from age to her trailer trash background. However, she rises up the ranks with Frankie behind her. A father-daughter bond forming. Everything is going well for Maggie, until a bad fight, in which Maggie becomes completely paralyzed save for movement of her face (can't even breath on her own).
It's at this point in the movie that the plot seems to become one huge advertisement for assisted suicide. Maggie states that she can't go on living because she's seen the world, won fights, heard people chant her name. This is aside from the fact that Eastwood's character is even hinting that perhaps she could get a special wheelchair and go back to school. It seems seriously odd that this woman comes from nothing into something, but the moment she has a serious set back she's ready to die.
Hello Maggie! Ever heard of Professor Stephen W. Hawking? A genius despite the odds against him. Or what about Christopher Reeve? He didn't just roll over and die! He lived life to its fullest until the day he died, with a determined smile on his face! I think in the end I found her attitude really offensive. And when Dunn refuses to help Fitzgerald die, she attempts suicide on her own by biting her tongue and bleeding to death which fails.
In the end, Eastwood helps Swank's character die. And I'm wondering the whole time where the hell the nurses were when she flat-lined? And Eastwood walks off to Ira's for a piece of lemon pie while Morgan Freeman's character writes Eastwood's real daughter explaining what kind of guy he was.
So the movie started off promising, but plummets to hades very quickly at the end. The only fighting you even see the character do is she finally tells off her hillbilly family who wants her money.
At times funny, others endearing and almost tear worthy, but the ending makes you pretty angry overall. I gave it a 7 out of 10.