“Exceptional Cinema with Powerful, Emotional Punch”

Million Dollar Baby is triumphant in its delivery, masterful in its subtlety, exceptional in its artistry and potent in its poignancy. At the sake of sounding cliché, Million Dollar Baby lands all of its punches, and just like in a real-life fight, it’s the ones you don’t see coming that impact you the most. I have to admit, I didn’t see the movie’s major twist coming, nor did I expect the gut-wrenching ramifications of that event to affect me so deeply. The buzz on the street is that Million Dollar Baby has a controversial climax, and while that may be very true, it’s impossible to walk away from the theater without being emotionally impacted, one way or the other. Like a ghost image of the soul, the movie’s haunting dénouement leaves you with brutally introspective questions such as, “what would I have done in the same situation?”

Clint Eastwood, clearly a grand master of his craft, is pitch perfect as both actor and director—there’s no doubt that he’s still in his prime or that he’ll be contending for several Oscars this spring. Eastwood’s curmudgeonly boxing trainer, Frankie Dunn, is a marvelous character; Frankie’s rough exterior is like a suit of armor, but the chink is his tender spot for Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), a struggling young waitress who insists on calling him “boss” and hangs around the run-down gym until Frankie gives in and finally agrees to manage her. Frankie’s assistant is former boxing legend, Eddie “Scrap-Iron” Dupris (Morgan Freeman at the top of his form), the man who looks after the gym with his one good eye and helps out hard luck cases, like Maggie, with quiet dignity.

There’s a wonderful scene where Frankie gives Eddie a hard time about his “holey” socks. The scene, by itself, is superfluous, but it’s this attention to creating three-dimensional characters that elevates Million Dollar Baby above the myriads of shallow scripts that have deluged Hollywood in recent years. Since the movie actually takes the time to invest in character development, the payoff is much greater than if they had settled for the standard, cursory attempt to give the audience a passing familiarity with the characters or to simply gloss over the whole works with snazzy special effects.

Million Dollar Baby is the story of a determined young woman with an unwavering desire to fulfill a dream, and the grim reality that life can drastically and tragically change in an instant. It’s the touching tale of a young woman who never really had a father and a man who comes to love that woman as his own daughter. There’s a million reasons why the movie is a brilliant example of high art, and at least a billion reasons why Million Dollar Baby should be the screen champion this year.

Rating: 3 1/2

Tags: Drama, Sport