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If you are looking for the perfect film to watch then Million Dollar Baby, directed by Clint Eastwood, is it. Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) is a veteran boxer trainer who has never really produced a success. He has been writing to his daughter for years but she never replies; he attends church every week and, after the service, plies his priest with questions and doubts that the priest is uninterested in answering; and a boxer who he has trained for years has signed up with another manager because Frankie won't go the final step and sign him up for a championship fight. Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris (Morgan Freeman), a half-blind ex-boxer mops the floors of the gym and maintains order. Things are pretty low. Then a young woman, from lower than humble origins, suddenly turns up at the gym whose heart is set on becoming a boxer. Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) wants Frankie to train her. Frankie instantly dismisses her -- she is, after all, a girl. But she persists until, eventually, a deep bond develops between the two and Maggie meets with success as a boxer. Then things start to change as Maggie is seduced by big-time boxing managers who want to capitalise on her success. It looks like things have come full circle for Frankie. But then there's a twist and what happens in the rest of the movie will leave you with profound issues to think about when you leave the cinema and which will linger for many days.
Clint Eastwood's directing is flawless and the acting is brilliant. The story is simple but profound. Eastwood has done some great films in recent years. This one is possibly his best yet in terms of directing and acting. Whatever you do this year, don't miss this film!
My Rating: ***** (out of 5)
Best Review
'Under Eastwood's painstakingly stripped-down direction -- his filmmaking has become the cinematic equivalent of Hemingway's spare though precise prose -- the story emerges as that rarest of birds, an uplifting tragedy.' - Kirk Honeycutt/The Hollywood Reporter
Worst Review
'A compendium of every cliché from every bad boxing melodrama ever made, Million Dollar Baby tries to transcend its cornball overfamiliarity with the qualities that have long characterized Eastwood's direction -- it's solemn, inflated and dull.' - Charles Taylor/Salon.com
Friday, February 11, 2005
Movie Review: Million Dollar Baby
If you are looking for the perfect film to watch then Million Dollar Baby, directed by Clint Eastwood, is it. Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) is a veteran boxer trainer who has never really produced a success. He has been writing to his daughter for years but she never replies; he attends church every week and, after the service, plies his priest with questions and doubts that the priest is uninterested in answering; and a boxer who he has trained for years has signed up with another manager because Frankie won't go the final step and sign him up for a championship fight. Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris (Morgan Freeman), a half-blind ex-boxer mops the floors of the gym and maintains order. Things are pretty low. Then a young woman, from lower than humble origins, suddenly turns up at the gym whose heart is set on becoming a boxer. Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) wants Frankie to train her. Frankie instantly dismisses her -- she is, after all, a girl. But she persists until, eventually, a deep bond develops between the two and Maggie meets with success as a boxer. Then things start to change as Maggie is seduced by big-time boxing managers who want to capitalise on her success. It looks like things have come full circle for Frankie. But then there's a twist and what happens in the rest of the movie will leave you with profound issues to think about when you leave the cinema and which will linger for many days.
Clint Eastwood's directing is flawless and the acting is brilliant. The story is simple but profound. Eastwood has done some great films in recent years. This one is possibly his best yet in terms of directing and acting. Whatever you do this year, don't miss this film!
My Rating: ***** (out of 5)
Best Review
'Under Eastwood's painstakingly stripped-down direction -- his filmmaking has become the cinematic equivalent of Hemingway's spare though precise prose -- the story emerges as that rarest of birds, an uplifting tragedy.' - Kirk Honeycutt/The Hollywood Reporter
Worst Review
'A compendium of every cliché from every bad boxing melodrama ever made, Million Dollar Baby tries to transcend its cornball overfamiliarity with the qualities that have long characterized Eastwood's direction -- it's solemn, inflated and dull.' - Charles Taylor/Salon.com
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