Review of Million Dollar Baby (2004) by Danny M — 04 Dec 2016

Million Dollar Baby is directed by Clint Eastwood, and it stars Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood, and Morgan Freeman in a boxing film about Maggie (Hilary Swank) that wants to be a boxer and wants to be trained by Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood), but he doesn't want to train her because he doesn't train girls.

When he sucks it up, he'll help her for whatever he can for her to be at the top. I remember this being one of the films that I wanted to see for years, but there was no way that I could watch it unless I buy it, and I didn't want to because I don't know whether the film is good or not.

All of a sudden however, I got to record the film from DirecTV when I saw it, and finally got the chance to watch it, and it lived up to the hype for me. Hilary Swank is terrific that I'm glad that she got the awards for her.

Clint Eastwood does the scruffy voice as usual, but he's always good at it, and the direction by him is also great. Morgan Freeman plays his character a bit deeper than his usual characters which I like, and it's really unexpected to see Jay Baruchel in this, and seeing him play a person that's not bright, but not dumb, is different, and he does a great job at it that doesn't feel stereotypical.

The characters are very developed that you enjoy them very much, and the writing by Paul Haggis understands about the main character not having a good enough job and is just willing to do anything to do what she dreams to do, while also flowing out from the other boxing films that makes this stand out and also not predictable, which I'm surprised to see that from an underdog story.

It gives enough fight scenes that are entertaining to watch that's not boring, and the chemistry between Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood is funny, interesting, and very sweet that they really care about each other, and not in a relationship type.

Now, let's get to the ending. I'm not going to spoil it, but let me just say, that it had a lot of controversy that some people didn't like that type of ending that it had, so for me, it's really hard to know whether it was the right choice or not, not film quality wise, but character decision per se.

It's very effective no doubt, but it wasn't like messing with your emotional strings. So for me, it's not saying that you should agree to this ending, but you understand why they went with that, and it shows that they'll be consequences to it.

In the end, Million Dollar Baby is honestly one of my favorite boxing movies and is up there with the greatest Rocky films.