Review of Million Dollar Baby (2004) by Greg L — 10 Jan 2011

I'm a fan of much of Clint Eastwood's late career work, but despite all the accolades it received this one doesn't really do anything for me. It's basically a conventional underdog sports movie with the ending of a conventional melodrama grafted on to it, and the good performances and competently staged boxing scenes don't make up for the fact that neither half is all that great.

The three leads are all fine, but the roles they play are neither particularly novel nor anything more than two-dimensionally written, and the minor characters around them have even less depth. Despite the credentials of everyone involved it basically adds up to nothing more than classic Oscar bait, and if you want to watch a dark, brooding boxing movie, you're much better off renting "Raging Bull".