Million Dollar Baby 
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Written by: Paul Haggis
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Mike Colter, Jay Baruchel, Anthony Mackie, Brian O'Byrne
Country: U.S.A.
Three Boxing Gloves
TKO.
With the boxing genre in both literature and movies so complete, it takes either a brave or foolish producer to make a boxing movie these days. What can we learn that we don't already know about the down-and-outer who through hard work or mob collusion or luck gets a shot at the title? Even with an American public that eats up this kind of story—in fact has their civilization built on an anyone-can-make-it myth (so well served by the film industry)—fresh angles on the subject seem to be few and far between. Women in the ring—arguably the last to be said on the matter unless there's a pug movie on dwarves out there—has already been done with moderate success, with Girl Fight the most notable.
So why Million Dollar Baby and does it add anything to the fight film inventory? The answer is ‘sometimes', partly because it creates an authentic world, and because it attempts to step outside the ring where more trenchant issues reside.
‘Baby' fits the form: a white trash waitress dreaming of ring glory; a hard-bitten trainer with a heart-of-gold; his wise all-seeing sidekick; an evil opponent; and the human flotsam that float around a thread-bare gym. To Director Eastwood's credit, his eye has John Huston's spirit and a minimalist approach to cinematography. But then he gives up the ground he's won with an overwritten script and a heartstrings soundtrack (think Eric Clapton's Tears In Heaven). To his credit, he creates meaningful dilemmas for his characters, and then washes them away with predictable melodrama.
One can easily see why Eastwood was drawn to this story. Frankie Dunn, a grizzled, old-school—‘girlies don't belong in my gym'—cut-man from the fight game is badgered by a naïve woman fighter to train her for the ring. He eventually gives in, of course, trains her, and gets her the title fight. But Frankie is morally flawed. His daughter won't talk to him for some unnamed transgression, and he can only take fighters so far. He won't take a risk with their lives. He finds redemption and tragedy through the fighter, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank). The subplot about Frankie's faith in Catholic doctrine surfaces as the main story in the final reel. He has to come to terms with right-to-death issues.
Eastwood is fascinated by moral conundrums. This is strange territory for an avowed conservative and most likely why he's accepted by both sides of the political spectrum within Hollywood and without. The fact that the Catholic League isn't protesting outside theatres is testament to that. We know what would happen if this film was made by, say, Warren Beatty.
Eastwood fits the role of Frankie Dunn like an old pair of jeans. As a director, he's generous with Swank and Morgan Freeman, a washed up fighter named Eddie ‘Scrap Iron' Dupris. Freeman is wonderful to look at and to listen to, but his voice over narration in the past tense throughout the entire film often brings things to a crawl as do some extemporaneous scenes. In addition, there is some clumsy or confusing editing in the title-fight scene and some equally confusing dialogue later on about the result. I won't say more, but it was bothersome. Another poor directorial choice was the inclusion of the role of Danger (Jay Baruchel), a deranged gym-rat wannabe, which was badly miscast and certainly over-acted.
The two discordant stories in ‘Baby' remind me of another flawed film that won an Oscar for Best Picture—Terms of Endearment. Its first two reels were screwball comedy before inexplicably switching to maudlin melodrama. At least when ‘Baby' unleashes the melodrama full bore, it might actually be trying to say something.
