A white trash waitress dreams of becoming the welterweight boxing champion of the world.
Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Hillary Swank give great performances. Unfortunately, the movie seems a little long and boring.
There were a lot of touching moments. Unlike, other boxing movies, where the star becomes the champ, this movie has a surprise twist. After fighting against the current champion, a cold hearted ex-hooker who plays dirty, Swank gets hit after the bell rings. Swank is surprised and falls onto the stool head first. She becomes paralyzed from the neck down. At the hospital, she bites her tongue trying to kill herself. She asks Eastwood to euthanize her. At first, Eastwood says no, because of his catholic beliefs. But after seeing her in such pain, Eastwood gives her peace by sending her to heaven. It provides a thought-provoking message. What would you do if your loved one was suffering so much?
One thing I didn't like was how Eastwood blamed Freeman for encouraging him to train her in the first place. He says it's all Freeman's fault that she ended up in the hospital. I thought it was Eastwood's fault. When the bell rang, he put the stool at her corner. Once Swank got hit, everything went in slow motion. He saw her falling slowly head first towards the stool. Instead of pulling the stool out, we see him standing there shouting, "Nooooo!!!!!!" Eastwood should have pulled the stool out of her way really quickly. Okay, maybe I'm being too unrealistic. I've been watching too many Matrix movies.
The Good: Great acting performances by all the lead characters. Good story. It shows what most people go through instead of ending up with happy endings. It shows failure and permanent paralysis.
The Bad: The movie feels long and boring during the everyday filler scenes.
The Ugly: Girls that box aren't pretty. The retarded wannabe boxer. --Why does there need to be a retarded comic relief guy in so many movies?
My rating: B, 88.
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