Review of Million Dollar Baby (2004) by Kevin K — 05 May 2011

Grade: A+ (100%).

Boxing movies are simple but inspirational. Every boxing movie has an underdog fighting for the title of champion of the ring. I could make a list of how many of these movies follow this guideline. But Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby takes the underdog portion of the cliche and creates something masterful. Maggie Fitzgerald (played by Hilary Swank in her Oscar winning role) is a waitress who wants to be number one in the ring. After a fight, she waits in the hallway for Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood in one of his best performances as an actor) and asks him to be her trainer. "I don't train girls" and "Tough ain't enough" stops Maggie for pursuing him. The next day, Maggie shows up at the Hit Pit Gymnasium which is owned by Frank and his long time friend and ex-boxer Eddie Dupris (Morgan Freeman in his Oscar winning role). A couple of insults from Frankie and a couple of stories of her past leads to Frankie training Maggie and later becomes her manager.

Now this is the part of the movie everyone can predict: we see Maggie train, becoming fit and strong, we see her boxing movements improve and we see a couple of fights that leads to her winning by knockout. This part of Million Dollar Baby is a cliche; however, this is also one of the movie's strengths. The boxing scenes shows Maggie able to take any opponent and knock the person out in the first round (if she wanted to). Clint Eastwood shows dangerous and sometimes bloody injuries that happen to Maggie in her fights. One is a graphic scene where Maggie breaks her nose and Frankie puts it back in and makes her suck up her blood from her nose back into the body - pretty graphic stuff. Yes, this is what we know about boxing movies.

The second part of the movie is all Eastwood's imagination and quite frankly one of the most depressing endings ever made. This part of the movie I can't talk about because I would literally spoil the movie for you. All I can say is: if you have a negative response about the final minutes of the film, you should never watch another film again. All I can ask you is this: What would you do?

Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby is a masterpiece. It has great direction by Mr. Eastwood (winning Best Director for this film) and fantastic performances by Mr. Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman. Hilary Swank is astounding as Maggie, a woman with a f***ed up family and a dream to be the best. Morgan Freeman finally wins his Oscar as Eddie, a one eyed janitor of his home/gymnasium. He also narrates the film and also knocks someone out with a couple of punches (this proves that Mr. Freeman is a badass). Clint Eastwood's (nominated for Best Actor) performance in this film is amazing. Most of us know Clint as a cop, a gunslinger or an old timer with a rifle and we all know that isn't a guy to mess with. In this film, Clint shocked me. He played someone different - a man with a love for boxing. Mr. Eastwood reveals his emotions on screen. There is one scene where Frankie comes home and receives a returned letter from his daughter. Frankie gets teary-eye - pure acting and pure amazement from Mr. Eastwood. I never seen Clint Eastwood like this especially in the last half of the movie.

Million Dollar Baby is amazing - plain and simple. Clint Eastwood directs his masterpiece in film making. Strong performances, tearjerking story, amazing score (also by Clint Eastwood), and excellent performances from the three main actors, Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby is emotional, entertaining, but above all masterful.

Million Dollar Baby was nominated for 7 Academy Awards and won 4.

Best Picture (Clint Eastwood).

Best Director (Clint Eastwood).

Best Actress (Hilary Swank).

Best Supporting-Actor (Morgan Freeman).