Million Dollar Baby Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)December 27th, 2004
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
MILLION DOLLAR BABY gives us two good acts of ROCKY LITE before it switches genres completely for the last act, a long and tedious tearjerker that turns this way overrated film into just an okay picture.
This Clint Eastwood movie features a gravelly and garbled narration by Morgan Freeman that is as frustratingly inaudible as it is nicely insightful, full of sharply written little homilies on the art of boxing. "Sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step back," he tells us. "But, if you step back too far, you ain't fighting at all."
In another performance certain to earn her a second Academy Award nomination, Hilary Swank (BOYS DON'T CRY) is wonderful as Maggie Fitzgerald, a scrappy fighter with a hillbilly accent. At almost 32, she is over a decade too old to begin a career as a boxer, but that doesn't deter her. Nor does Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), an over-the-hill trainer in a dilapidated gym, who doesn't want to train a "girl," no matter how much she insists. With unbounded energy, she trains hard, long after they turn the lights off in the gym. Why she wants Frankie, who has never taken a fighter to a title match, to be her manager isn't clear. But she has her sights set on him. Freeman plays Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris, an ex-boxer who works for Frankie, cleaning the latrines and offering unwanted advice to his boss.
Maggie turns out to be so good that she wins her matches in first round KOs, which proves to be a problem for Frankie. Other managers don't want their fighters to face Maggie, causing him to have to shell out under the table bribes in order to get matches for her.
The manipulative last act is sometimes hard to watch. This would be a good movie to wait for video, when you could skip the last act entirely, leaving you with a good movie, albeit nothing special. You've seen it all before. The only significant twist is that the fighter is a female.
MILLION DOLLAR BABY runs too long at 2:18. It is rated PG-13 for "violence, some disturbing images, thematic material and language" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film, which has already opened in limited release, opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, January 7, 2004. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com
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