Million Dollar Baby

Clint gets better and better.

They said it after Mystic River, endlessly, but for a guy who should be easing gently into iconhood, Eastwood goes on making movies and the movies go on improving and the old folk in the seventh row walk a little taller on their way to the rest room.

There are shades of Girlfight in Million Dollar Baby, only the canvas (no pun intended) is larger and Hilary Swank can't hide her film star looks, while Michelle Rodriguez in Karyn Kusama's outstanding 1999 debut was powerfully built and unforgettable.

Eastwood reunites with Morgan Freeman after Unforgiven and, as a pairing, you would be hard pressed to find better. He plays Frankie Dunn, a boxing trainer whose commitment to his fighters is scarred by experience and tainted by the knowledge that the best will leave him before they are ready, seduced by managers with more sophisticated sales pitches. Freeman is "Scrap" Dupris, who lost an eye in the ring as a young contender and now works for Frankie and sleeps at the gym.

Maggie (Swank) turns up one day and starts punching the big bag. Frankie ignores her, says he doesn't train girls, but she persists and refuses to go away, paying her fees from the tips she makes as a waitress. She comes from the South, "somewhere between Nowhere and Goodbye." Scrap comments in his letter to Frankie's estranged daughter - used as a voice-over narrative - "She grew up knowing one thing - she was trash."

She's not, of course, even though her family fits the stereotype to a torn T-shirt. Through persistence and single-minded determination, at the age of 32, she wins her chance and the rest, as any boxing movie aficionado knows, is history.

There is so much more to Million Dollar Baby than the old macho spit'n'sweat ringside banter. It is a film about respect, loyalty, love and courage. The performances transcend sentimentality. Freeman's authority, Eastwood's conviction and Swank's adroitness are, if such feelings can be expressed outside the locker room, a thing of beauty.