Million Dollar Baby Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)December 8th, 2004
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Warner Bros.
Grade: B
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Written by: Paul Haggis, stories by Jerry Boyd aka F.X. Toole Cast: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Jay Baruchel, Mike Colter, Lucia Rijker, Brian F. O'Byrne Screened at: Warner, NYC, 12/7/04
While most Americans want to be rich and famous, some acquire substantial assets but few reach the peaks of celebrity that make their names household terms. In Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby," written by Paul Haggis based on a story in fight trainer F.X. Toole's collection "Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner," a woman approaching middle age and going nowhere takes vigorous and sustained action to achieve both goals. That she does so in the boxing world though she commences serious training at the late age of thirty-one is not credible. However Hilary Swank in the role of boxer Maggie Fitzgerald turns in such a prize-worthy role as a woman with nothing who wants everything that we accept the movie's premises. Not so clear is the motivation of her trainer, Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood), who virtually sleepwalks through the movie, guilt-ridden that he and his daughter have been estranged for twenty-three years for reasons that are never explored.
While the production notes for the film state that this is not a boxing movie but one about relationships is simplistic. True, the spine of the story is the symbiosis between an aging trainer and a soon-to-be-middle-aged contender. But those of us who believe that boxing should be as verboten as public smoking is in New York City will have their prejudices confirmed. Boxing has carried many a man and now quite a few women into a life with more money than they could have earned in a lifetime in a less lucrative job. Yet a pastime that richly rewards a person for beating the stuffings out of his opponent has no more place in the lexicon of civilized sport than does bullfighting in Spain and Mexico.
Much of the story takes place in a seedy prizefight training center, where aspirants hang out and punch bags under the watchful eyes of trainer Frankie Dunn and a helper who now does menial jobs about the gym, Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris (Morgan Freeman). Scrap, as he is affectionately called, has known better days, his own career in the ring ended when he loses an eye despite Frankie's unwillingness to stop the fight in time. Some of the humor of the pic is provided by Danger Barch (Jay Baruchel is a splendid supporting role), a mentally challenged individual whose dreams of stardom in the sport will prove elusive. When Maggie Fitzgerald, who has paid up her dues for a six-months' period, insists that she is tough and asks Frankie to be her trainer, she is put off by Frankie's raspy- voiced response, "Girlie tough is not enough." If you're a betting man, do you doubt that you can win a wager that Frankie would soon take her on?
"Million Dollar Baby" is essentially a three-character piece, with Morgan Freeman doubling as a philosophic narrator, but Eastwood does well bringing in secondary characters. The most loathsome is Maggie's mom, a lazy hillbilly who viciously attacks her daughter for buying her a house because that would mean she'd lose her welfare benefits. Brian O'Byrne supplies the conscience of the story as Father Horvak, who is amazed that Frankie has been to church every day for the past twenty- three years and, as the priest states, must be sitting on quite a bit of guilt to motivate the worship. (This makes us salivate for information on just what Frankie did to alienate his daughter over two decades previous.)
Aside from that hole in the plot, the principal characters are well developed. Maggie does not want to spend the rest of her life waiting tables and scraping dishes. Frankie is adrift because all the letters he sends to his daughter are returned to sender. Since people like violence, as is stated in the film, we in the audience, despite our views of boxing, can't help being emotionally involved in the bouts, wishing Maggie the best as she proceeds up the rungs to a title fight for which she is not really prepared. The tragedy that ensues leads Frankie to make a fateful decision, weighing his priest's injunction against his own conscience. If "Million Dollar Baby" relies on hoary themes, we're drawn in particularly by the crackerjack performance that Eastwood evokes from Hilary Swank.
Rated PG-13. 132 minutes. © 2004 by Harvey Karten
@harveycritic.com
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