Herald rating: * * * *
Cast: Michelle Rodriguez, Jaime Tirelli, Paul Calderon
Director: Karyn Kusama
Rating: M (violence)
Running time: 99 minutes
Screening: Rialto cinemas from Thursday
Review: Russell Baillie
It might be a small film, a low-budget American independent production from a debuting director starring no one we've encountered before - save for veteran indie movie guru John Sayles (also an executive producer here) in a cameo as a school teacher.
But Girlfight still packs a punch. Actually, it's a one-two combo.
It leads with a script by director Kusama, which, like Billy Elliot, follows a traditional form of the underdog getting out from under, but gives it a fresh setting and sensibility.
Then comes the uppercut that is the firebrand performance of newcomer Rodriguez.
She plays Diana, a perma-scowling, angry, Brooklyn 18-year-old who takes up boxing at the low-rent neighbourhood gym where her younger brother has long been a reluctant attendee.
She's no plucky teen looking for an easy anger management course to make her a better person.
She likes hitting things - and eventually people - under the guidance of trainer Hector (Tirelli, in a fine supporting performance).
Yes, there are the usual obstacles to her progress due to gender. And there is a love interest in the form of the gym's best hope Adrian (Douglas) - the character's name surely a, er, sly reference to the girlfriend in Rocky.
Both factors lead to a finale that might seem melodramatic and contrived, had it not been for its earlier steady footwork.
It's occasionally laboured in its pacing.
But Girlfight is a movie about grit, determination and transformation that feels like the real deal.
Girlfight
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