michelle rodriguez be a well build high school senior who discover that she have a powerful punch and begin amateur training at a brooklyn gym . santiago douglas be a a handsome young man and barely old than she and who also train there . they meet after class and so to speak and and feel attract to each other . no sex . santiago have be instruct to save it for his next bout . both be participant in a gender blind athletic program that make no distinction between male and female and a misguided attempt to level the athletic playing field . a conservative radio commentator recently announce and i swear i be not make this up let face it while the president be black . i be here to make an equally perspicacious observation men and woman be different . now and in 99 case out of 100 and this needn not make any difference in physical performance . but in the top one percent train athlete whose skill have be hone to a fine edge men generally have the advantage . with their narrow hip they can run faster . and they have great muscle mass and upper torso strength . these difference in body build make it possible for woman to give birth and raise child and for men to catch and kill food for them . this sexual bifurcation be the result of the perfectly normal process of natural selection . without it and there might not be any human at all . and that and boy and girl and be why they have men event and woman event at the olympics . i speak to you a your anthropologist . that will be ten cent and paypal preferred . that why i call this gender blind program misguide . a talented a boxer a rodrigues be and a she approach the zenith of the game and she will eventually lose to a male . that where the complication arise in this movie . rodrigues be finally match against her boy friend and douglas . neither want to loose any anger on the other and not to mention roundhouse right and but the pride of both be at stake and and the pride be both personal and gender relate . douglas refuse to fight a woman in the ring . and rodriguez be offend by what she see a his patronize attitude . it end happily . i wasn not really expect much from the film . i think it would be a rip off of clint eastwood million dollar baby until i discover that this be release year earlier . and i would never hear of the director or of any of the performer . that sort of obscurity generally auger ill make for television weeper and so forth . but i be surprise at how neatly this be put together . the total absence of bathos leave me open mouth . so do the minimal use of box clichés the frayed rope and the blood and the cutting of the swollen eye and the battered post bout face and the fat and sweaty onlooker shout kill him . and the slow motion landing of glove on nose and the spray of sweat from the maul head and the heroic music signal the long awaited apotheosis of the victor . none of that here well and almost none . the whole plot could be consider formulaic . tough kid find outlet in the ring and etc . the feeling youre leave with be that this be probably pretty much what these amateur contest be like . different from those we see on tv and in ordinary movie . no bell ring and for instance and instead a dancing and observant referee yell stop . and box . the contestant wear head gear . the gym be populate not by a crowd of cheer spectator and but only by a handful of people who have some particular interest in the going on . it a clean movie and despite the rather grim setting and the unhappy family dynamic . michelle rodriguez can look pretty mean and what with her muscular bulk and her eye glow under her lowered brow and but once you get use to the idea that this be a girl who can beat you to a pulp anytime she want and and once you hear the feminine contour of her supersegmentals and she ain not bad . ( a scene in which she battle her father to the floor be overdo it . ) it be a little hard to understand douglas restraint when rodriguez crawl all over him in bed . the director and karyn kusama and have choose her talent carefully . show what you can do with some talent and imagination and and a modicum of money . there ought to be more film like it . take one of those multi billion dollar blockbuster full of dinosaur or space ship and spread the generosity around a little .