Million Dollar Baby Review
by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)January 14th, 2005
Million Dollar Baby
reviewed by Ryan Ellis
January 12, 2005
SPOILERS AFTER THE REVIEW
Given a choice, I'd rather go to a show that lasts 90 minutes than one that takes up more than 2 hours. Not that the good ones aren't worth the extra time, but when you want to see every single movie ever made, every half hour counts. 'Million Dollar Baby' earns all of its 137 minutes of screen time. No scenes needed to be shortened or cut out. The film didn't need a better ending. Everything flows. This isn't THE great picture of 2004, but it's the one that surprised me the most (or would have, if other critics hadn't been raving more than a month ago). You're not going to know where this is heading, but every turn seems just right.
If the entire cast and crew hadn't done such a remarkable job, it would be easy to throw all the bouquets at Clint Eastwood's feet. He's the star, director, producer, and music composer. He's been regularly pulling quadruple duty like that since the mid-'90s. Outside of indepedent filmmakers, I can't think of too many multi-taskers performing as many jobs on their movies. And Clint will turn 75 this May! He had already passed 60 when he started making his best films ('Unforgiven', 'A Perfect World', the beloved-but-overpraised 'Mystic River'). Unlike many of the other living legend directors, Eastwood seems to have MORE to say in his gray-haired days.
To make 'Million Dollar Baby', Dirty Harry brought the band back together. Once again, production designer Henry Bumstead, editor Joel Cox, Deborah Hopper with her costumes, cinematographer Tom Stern (who likes darkness just as much as light), and actor Morgan Freeman work with the director. These and other names pop up repeatedly in Eastwood productions. They're all so in synch now that I can't even pinpoint just how effective they are as individuals. It's great to sit there in the theatre and notice the editing or the sets or the lighting, but this group has such a seamless technique that their own work is lost in the bigger picture. This is what a filmmaking team should be.
The 2 major additions to the Malpaso company are outstanding: screenwriter Paul Haggis (you might remember him from "Due South", a Canadian television series) and Hilary Swank. Haggis' script doesn't force anything and it plays to the strengths of each cast member. He deftly adapted "Rope Burns", short stories written by F.X. Toole. It's been said that the cast worked with the first draft, which is unheard of in this era of the neverending rewrite. As for Swank, she's just amazing in her role as Maggie Fitzgerald, a warm-hearted hick waitress who's desperate to be a boxer. Swank makes a half-dozen perfect choices and she never panders, even in situations where most actors would be pandering until they couldn't breathe anymore.
Eastwood and Freeman are fine too. Clint plays Frankie Dunn, a Californian gym owner and former boxing manager/cut-man. He's brilliant in this field, but he's been burned once too often by the cockroaches in the game o' fisticuffs. He also has an estranged (and unseen) daughter who won't answer his letters. Major baggage. Freeman plays Eddie "Scrap Iron" Dupris, a one-time fighter who has become a janitor and lives in a skunky backroom in the gym. [He's the "I just gotta be around it" guy that Rocky would have been had he not inexplicably beaten Apollo Creed for the belt in their second dust-up.] Frankie and Scrap have scores of demons, some of them with each other.
The story (yes, I will get to that now) is that Maggie wants Frankie to train her to be a pro. She's untested and he doesn't want to train a girl, especially one who's already in her 30s. She's persistent, though, and Scrap sees just as much talent in her as guts. She's tough, but "girlie, tough ain't enough," growls Frankie. [That theme plays out in more ways than one, actually.] Finally, the grizzled manager relents and puts her through the ringer. When she finally gets into the ring, she's able to knock out every opponent in the first round. Frankie is overprotective (possibly to her financial detriment), but this kid is clearly a---say it like you mean it---million dollar baby.
Does that set-up sound like every other underdog story you've ever heard? You say you don't like boxing movies? And you don't like boxing movies with girls doing the scrapping? Well, all that is here, but it's just a foundation for better things. Haggis, Eastwood, and Cox pace their story out beautifully. They also craft the film in such a way that the climactic title fight and the lengthy coda will probably stun you. I'm trying to avoid spoiling anything until an analysis after the review. Put it this way---I would have enjoyed myself up until the womano-a-womano battle, but this movie achieves five times as much because of the powerful material that follows.
Swank won the Oscar for 1999's 'Boys Don't Cry' and she's going to be nominated again. She looks the part. She trained like a madwoman, which paid off in spades. Kid can box. As good as she is in the squared circle, it's her shy smile, genuine empathy, and sweet disposition that won me over immediately. Of course you're rooting for the main character when she's taking on a ferocious bitch (Lucia Rijker, a real-life champion kickboxer) in the titanic battle. What I loved is how balanced Swank is in all aspects of this girl's life. It's about as complete and special as any performance in the last year.
As effective as Eastwood is in his performance and with his score, his direction is the bread and butter of 'Million Dollar Baby'. The way he works with his female lead is the key. But isn't this the stoic star of violent westerns, a man's man without a sensitive bone in his body? We know he's worked well with men before (Gene Hackman in 'Unforgiven', Sean Penn in 'Mystic River', Forest Whitaker in 'Bird'), so now I'm looking through his filmography to see how good the women have been in his pictures. What do I find, but that Meryl Streep in 'The Bridges Of Madison County', Marcia Gay Harden in 'Mystic River', even Anna Thompson (the "cut-up whore" in
'Unforgiven') were sensational. Now Eastwood has guided Hilary Swank to her best performance. She's authentic in every scene, through every story point.
The last thing I'll say (for now) about the ending is that it takes a hard left turn that I did not see coming. And while some of the developments play out in ways you might expect, the final act of this film is surprising, fresh, and very moving. Eastwood once came off as a macho man who didn't know how to show emotion. He's more revealing as an actor and as a filmmaker in the last 30 minutes of 'Million Dollar Baby' than I can ever remember. In one of his best (ever) scenes as an actor, he even sheds a few tears.
This dramatic fable is clearly an Eastwood production, which means that everybody who worked on it can share the kudos. They make quite a team. 'Million Dollar Baby'. This one is worth your time. See it.
SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ENDING (SPOILERS!)
This section is only for those who've seen the movie...or for those who haven't, but don't care that I'll ruin it for you. Maggie's neck injury and subsequent paralysis in the title match is, of course, a stunner. Frankie's fatherly protection while she's holed up in the hospital is wet-eye stuff too. I love how Frankie blames Eddie because he's the one who encouraged Maggie in the first place. People say things like that in such hopeless situations.
It bookends Eddie's earlier scene where he tries to convince Maggie to leave Frankie, suggesting she'll never get a title shot with him in her corner. Had she listened and not been so loyal, she might not have been turned into a quadriplegic. Her devastating (but inevitable) request that Frankie end her misery got a verbal "oh no" from me. And Eastwood's mercy killing can leave even the most cynical viewer shaken. Somehow, the boxing movie becomes a right-to-die movie.
But there's one moment, one tiny scene that has hardly left my mind in the past week. Maggie suggests they fly to Vegas for the big title match and then drive back. He asks how the hell they're gonna do that and she reassures him that she'll take care of it. Days after seeing the movie, it dawned on me that she was planning to buy a car after the fight.
This self-professed trailer trash---who has spent her life eating table scraps and counting pennies---had decided to buy herself a car. Projecting back to that scene made the movie even more powerful for me. Knowing this wonderful young woman has had every dream dashed is bad enough. Reading between the lines to see one more goal she'll never reach is doubly heartbreaking.
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