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Million Dollar Baby
1/28/05 - PG-13 - 137m
Clint Eastwood - Frankie Dunn
Hilary Swank - Maggie Fitzgerald
Morgan Freeman - Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris
Director: Clint Eastwood
Screenplay by: Paul Haggis
Studio: Warner Bros.
Official
Website
JEF
Ok, first let me apologize for my lame one-liner.
This was a terrific movie. I want to say that the movie was “powerful” but I’m not quite sure that word fits exactly, but it was an amazing film.
Storyline: Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) is an aging boxing manager, in addition to owning and running a boxing gym. He has a friend and helper Eddie “Scrap-Iron” Dupris (Morgan Freeman). Frankie is set in his ways, and perhaps a little to stubborn for his own good, in that he tends to loose some business due to his stuborness. Then we meet Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank). She herself is a bit old to enter the world of boxing, but she has heart and determination, and is hoping to sway Frankie to become her coach/manager.
The thing that made this film great, were the three key actors… Clint, Morgan, and Hilary all did amazing jobs. The acting was superb. Throw in a few secondary characters (who also acted well) to provide some comic relief at times, and the movie was well balanced.
The only weak point for me was perhaps the storyline itself, in that it was a little typical of a boxing movie. Another Rocky story, but this time with a girl. But the thing is, that despite this, all the other pieces to this film make for a great movie that this weakness is easy to overlook. I must admit, I was hesitant about seeing this movie. I thought it would be too predictable and just another “underdog” movie. I knew the movie is getting a lot of word of mouth buzz, and is up for so many awards, but still, I couldn’t see watching a movie about women’s boxing. I’ve only seen one women’s boxing match on TV, and was not overly impressed. Maybe the fight I happened to see was just not that great of a fight. So I thought, this was going to be an entire movie about women’s boxing, and luckily it wasn’t. It was more about these three characters and their relationships with one another. Sure the movie does have quite a bit of boxing references and I think any fan of boxing will enjoy it, but its much more deeper than that.
I really must tip my hat to Clint also… He had such a critical role in this movie that it amazes me… He was a key actor, the Director, a Producer, and even is credited with “original music” (which I’m not sure what that means… did he choose some of the music selections, or did he actually perform?). Bravo Clint.
I must add one bit of nitpickyness that annoyed me. Several times in the movie, we see the corner man, sponge down the fighter with a brand new bone-dry sponge. In every fight that I’ve ever seen, this sponge is usually soaked in a bucket of water, to both clean and cool the boxer. Why Clint chose to have the bucket empty with no water, I don’t understand. In a related nit-pick, I hardly saw any sweat in the film. Boxing is an incredibly strenuous, and I don’t recall seeing not one bead of sweat on any of the fighters. Perhaps this was a cinematography call? But I felt it detracted from the reality just a bit. But like I said, this was such a minor point that it too is easily forgiven.
If you get the chance to see this movie, I highly recommend it. Overall, It’s not your typical boxing movie, but is a character driven film, with complex issues such as age, religion, determination, family, and heart. It doesn’t get much better than this.
Jef
