LIKE a good wine, Clint Eastwood gets better with age. The veteran filmmaker's 25th feature behind the camera, and his follow-up to the Oscar-winning Mystic River, is quite possibly his most assured and accomplished work to date.

More thrillingly, at 74, the iconic star delivers his most heart-breaking and moving performance in a career spanning 50 years... and counting.

Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) is an ageing professional boxing trainer who runs The Hit Pit, an ailing, old-school boxing gym in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

He has but one solitary friend: ex-boxer Scrap (Freeman), who looks after the gym and occasionally pricks Frankie's thick skin with his barbed wit.

Out of the blue, Missouri waitress Maggie Fitzgerald (Swank) walks into the gym and asks Frankie to become her trainer, in the hope that boxing will help her escape her dead-end job.

At first, Frankie refuses Maggie's demands - a girl has no place in the boxing ring and at 31, Maggie is too old - but her determination gradually wears him down.

Over a series of hard-fought encounters, Maggie discovers the woman she always knew she could be, and Frankie realises the strength of his connection with this incredible and spirited young woman.

Million Dollar Baby begins with a predictable plot and trio of archetypal characters - the grizzled world-weary veteran, the spiky contender, the knowing best friend - and somehow conjures pure magic out of the ether.

Screenwriter Paul Haggis develops the relationships gradually, alternating between the full-on conflicts of Frankie and Maggie and the humorous banter between Frankie and Scrap.

He uses Scrap as narrator and Freeman's deep voice resonates through the narrative's twists and turns as Maggie searches for, as Scrap puts it so beautifully, 'the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you'.

The central trio are stunning - Eastwood is a towering physical presence, Freeman is a wonderfully charismatic foil, and Swank pushes herself to the limit in every sense, taking all of the punches in the ring for the sake of authenticity.

You really don't see the killer punch coming. When it lands, with staggering emotional force and precision, we're out for the count.

Damon Smith