Review of Million Dollar Baby (2004) by Rongiu — 28 Aug 2010

Sorry for the translation, is mechanical.

Million Dollar Baby has so much original, the drama of three people. They are stories that affect you directly, powerfully enter into your deepest instincts and the reason is because they are true stories that can happen to you, your family, your neighbor and displayed without veils. Take it or leave it. Probably what has "taken" my emotion was the presence on stage of a woman and a woman with a fighting spirit out of the ordinary.

This allows me to say that in "Million Dollar Baby" all the experience of Eastwood is made available for learning the "cadets filmmakers" and also because it was possible to add, I think, to many film called "classical" another. Eastwood manages to give us an endless alternation of emotions as if it were established and marked by a metronome, now slow hour fast.

About rhythm, the film is accompanied by music by Eastwood and narrated by Eddie Dupris, "Scrap Iron" (Morgan Freeman), former boxer Frankie (Eastwood) has trained years ago and which the manager. Scrap is a real thorn in the soul of Frankie.The two friends carry with them so frustrating and painful burden of their stories. Different but converging. if only to regret that decision probably a "past" taken in a different way would have given a different ending to their lives. The "hardness film" director, in which more than fifty years are used in this film even dissolves in tears and certainly chose the place and the right time to pay.

Frankie, professional box with years of experience as a manager and at the same time away from the professional circuit has a second chance to "return" with Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank). Swank has a starring role that in every sense, certainly comparable to the performance of Boys Do not Cry. " I said, Maggie is a waitress who receives a resounding "No!" When presented at the gym run by Frankie. The motivation is twofold. Does not train women boxers, and a thirty year old has little chance of achieving ambitious goals.

Frankie, however, only later realizes that it faces a woman determined and disciplined. Discipline gained from the "Life", which always knows how to be a teacher when he finds disciples willing to listen and to learn to translate its many meanings silences. Maggie spring. Why not let the "Life" have been told that only Frankie can help you achieve the desired objective. Fighting for the world title. Convinced for various reasons, Frankie, Maggie and Scrap start a new migration with new feelings, new feelings. Their flight is more often excitedly, almost never gliding. Maggie is found to have a meeting with the family and will be a meeting that will take effect ...

Million Dollar Baby is a film in which the personal spaces, intimate and filled are affected by a tragedy of enormous dimensions. Due because of what men can do better, particularly in sport, "not respecting the rules." "Winning at all costs." But woe to judge the choices of "others," especially if the choices are existence, what "do" with their lives. "Other" always deserve the utmost respect. Why? Why put it like a "fist meeting" that can prematurely close a match is not true that things only ever happen to "others".

The three main characters are actors and forever and this is, in my opinion, the strength of this film that catapulted him overwhelmingly in the masterpieces.