In 'True Grit', the plucky young female lead asks John Wayne if he has true grit. In 'Girlfight', the plucky young female lead has true grit. The story is of a young hispanic girl in a run-down inner city neighborhood beset on all sides by bleak situations. The only step the movie asks us to take is that she becomes curious about boxing because of her brother's involvement, and that's set up well enough it's not much of a step. Everything flows from there in a natural uncompromising fashion. This is excellent work for the first time director (and writer) Karyn Kusama, mixing things up here and there, including touches of interesting cinematography. Also a first timer, Michelle Rodriguez plays that plucky young female lead convincingly and this pile of white dough wouldn't want to get on her bad side.