Poignant But Lame Hardcase Boxing Trainer Takes On Girl Fighter Tearjerker

Rating: 5/10 (5 February 2008)

Frankie Dunn is a seen-it-all veteran boxing trainer who reluctantly agrees to coach a young woman, Maggie Fitzgerald, who has some talent but no experience. He carefully brings her along, teaches her how to fight and how to make it, and slowly she works her way up to a shot at the Women's Welterweight Title. Tragedy awaits, however ...
I have never understood the Oscars. The one was a big winner - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, which is nice, since it's a good movie and Eastwood's success as an elder statesman filmmaker is hugely deserved. But, and this must be said, this movie's plot is as lame as a three-legged donkey with a really bad case of arthritis. It's as if it was trying to get in everything from The Big Book Of Boxing Movie Clichés - the grizzled old trainer, the gutsy up'n'comer, the washed-up hasbeen, the surrogate father, the one big shot at the title, the dirty fighter, the man haunted by his unspoken past, blood on the canvas, the cruel injustice of the ring. There's even a family of greedy rednecks and a feeble-minded guy the heroes look out for. Jeez, that stuff was already corny back when Wallace Beery made The Champ in 1931 ! It shamelessly steals from a hundred better films; Rocky has more street-cred, Raging Bull more style, Homeboy (a hugely underrated boxing film) more pathos, Triumph Of The Spirit and The Hurricane more intrigue, and its one original twist - a female boxer - comes from Karyn Kusama's indie flick Girlfight, conspicuously made just a few years before. Having said all that though, if you forget about the plot and focus on the characters, it's a beautiful film. As ever, Eastwood develops the people with tenderness and intensity so that every nuance and scene has depth and dramatic bite. It's an unusual three-character setup - two old guys and a young woman - but their friendship, respect and critical bluster towards each other is touching and brilliantly played. Swank is one of the best actresses of her generation and she doesn't do the obvious thing here - make Maggie a hard, defeminised tough guy - instead, she simply plays it straight and convinces both as a fighter and as a woman seeking an escape from the white-trash lifestyle she has come to accept. This is finely judged, and without this performance the character could easily have slipped into a ridiculous caricature. Even better is old pro Freeman, who steals the show with his quiet dignity, rascally moments (the dialogue about socks is priceless) and mellow narration. I like boxing movies - the ring-as-metaphor-for-anything is too rich an idea not to - and this one is good, but only if you're prepared to go with a script which scores a grade A for characterisation and a grade F for plotting. Based on Rope Burns, a book of stories by Jerry Boyd/F.X. Toole, a real trainer and ringside cut-man. Trivia - Lucia Rijker, who plays Billie, the evil fighter, is a real boxing and kickboxing women's champ, and also acted as a technical adviser on the movie.