A HUGELY talented cast featuring Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and the ever-brilliant Morgan Freeman star in this powerful tale of determination, guts, inspiration and respect.

Kind-hearted waitress Maggie Fitzgerald (Swank) begs boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) to take her on. Although at first he refuses to take the fledgling under his wing, he realises what she lacks in technical skills she more than makes up for in raw passion.

Maggie sees her fighting skills become more finely tuned than she could possibly have hoped for and her reputation begins to spread. Sadly, during one headline-grabbing bout, Maggie finds herself on the receiving end of a boxing move which will change her life forever.

The relationships between the three main characters are superb. They make a beautiful trio with Maggie's desperation to triumph over adversity, Frankie's haunting memories of the past and Eddie's (Freeman) commitment to making both of them happy.

At times the plot seems to stale a little as all we see is Maggie flattening her opposition with one punch but the story builds to one of the best endings to grace the silver screen in years.

HC