![]() ![]() Once again, no points for those who guess Frankie’s eventual choice. (See devoted nurse Juliette Binoche in The English Patient and, going all the way back to 1927, loving son/doctor Nils Asther in Sorrell and Son.) When the inevitable moment arrives, the avid churchgoing Frankie must decide whether he will help to terminate the life of the young woman he has grown to love as a daughter. (See Wallace Beery/ Jon Voight in The Champ.) Needless to say, wholesome, go-getting, all-American Maggie doesn’t actually lose that particular fight her butch, mean-spirited, foreign opponent ( an ex-prostitute!) cheats.Īs our now-tetraplegic heroine lies paralyzed in bed, it becomes obvious that sooner or later she will ask to be relieved of her suffering. In the case of Million Dollar Baby, the tragic incident that destroys everyone’s happiness is the result of an injury that takes place during a match. In Million Dollar Baby’s third act, we’re taken into The Champ meets The English Patient territory.Īs mentioned further up, that comes as a shock because everything else that had happened until then had zealously followed the path of every feel-good American sports/competition movie of past and present, from Brown of Harvard, One in a Million, Gentleman Jim, and Somebody Up There Likes Me to the dreary Rocky franchise, Breaking Away, Hoosiers, and Seabiscuit. In 1999, Swank took on a more radical “manly” role – as a butch lesbian trying to pass for a guy – in Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry, which earned her that year’s Best Actress Oscar. Million Dollar Baby movie with Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank. (See fatherless, fast-rising champ John Garfield in Body and Soul and troubled but tough slugger Michelle Rodriguez in Girlfight.) ![]() Ingmar Bergman-esque solemn tone or no, Part One, which encompasses the first two-thirds of the film, presents the all-too-familiar account of the pursuit of the American Dream – or perhaps more accurately, the escape from the American Nightmare – in the face of tremendous odds: Poor, fatherless Southern waitress Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) is eager to leave behind her trailer-trash background by punching her way to boxing-ring stardom. Toole (pen name for boxing trainer Jerry Boyd), Million Dollar Baby provides the viewer with two movies for the price of one. Predictable relationshipĬhiefly based on a short story by F.X. Ultimately, the derivative, contrived, slow-moving Million Dollar Baby – which never quite makes up its mind whether boxing is an artful sport or a social disease – is made barely tolerable only by Hilary Swank’s performance as the steadfast titular fighter. ![]() For once the dust is settled, that last third quickly derails into the same sentimental mush Eastwood and screenwriter Paul Haggis had come up with earlier on. ![]() Fresh off the enthusiastically received, multiple Oscar-nominated, and appallingly insincere Mystic River, Best Director Academy Award winner Clint Eastwood ( Unforgiven, 1992) has gone on to tackle the ups and downs of the boxing world in Million Dollar Baby.ĭespite its cheery title and myriad boilerplate plot points, Eastwood’s latest isn’t one more Rocky-like rags-to-riches tale about a strong-willed underdog who’s transmogrified into an unbeatable topdog once he puts on his gloves, jumps into the boxing ring, and starts using other men as punching bags.įor starters, Million Dollar Baby’s lead character is a female boxer besides, about two-thirds into the narrative, the movie takes a radical turn toward tragedy that is as unexpected as everything else on screen – whether before or after – is tediously predictable. ![]()
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