Million Dollar Baby

Movie: Million Dollar Baby

Review by Kevin Xalvis (xalviss)

Cast: Clint east wood, Morgan freeman, Hillary swank

Director: Clint Eastwood

Beautifully written, superbly directed and excellently acted in, Eastwood's 'Million Dollar Baby' both captivates and involves the viewer in a staggering film experience.

Talent number One - is Paul Haggis, producer and screenwriter. Haggis takes stories by F.X Toole and crafts something that boxing-movie lovers haven't seen before. It doesn't lean entirely on the exhausted underdog cliché ("Rocky") or the 'rise and fall of a star' one either ("Raging Bull").

Talent Number two - And Eastwood's best too. He is an elderly man; some might say too elderly to still be working. After all, most people are retired by his age. But if you had to guess when you're watching this film, you would never, ever say the man is seventy-four. You would say something closer to the sixties, because the man has such amazing energy and dedication, and above all, he has talent. It's been forty long years since "A Fist Full of Dollars" and film has come a long way, and so has this man. At seventy-four, passed all those years as an action hero, nearing what's could be the end of his career, Eastwood has made his best movie. I really, really hope he has time to make many more.

Talent number three - is Morgan Freeman. He could narrate what I did yesterday and it would be considered Oscar-worthy. There is no one better to impart wisdom to an audience and half of why "Million Dollar Baby" communicates its ideas and themes so clearly is because of him.

Maggie needs boxing to make something of herself and gain respect… When she first approaches Frankie, asking to be trained, he told her he never trains girls… She continues to hang around and after much harassment he eventually changes his mind… From there, we begin to feel some natural affinity between the two…To say more would be to ruin a lovely, heartbreaking film carefully layered with surprises…

In the championship fight, Maggie boxes against the current middle weight championship title holder. She is not only aggressive and tough but also fights dirty. She takes a deadly shot at the side of Maggie and sends her landing on her head on the corner stool, breaking her neck. Maggie suffers spinal neck injury that leaves her paralyzed for life. The last 1/4 of the movie is about euthanasia and human morals. Maggie is bed ridden for a long time and eventually has to have her leg amputated due to muscle atrophy and bed sores. She asks Frankie for a favor. She asks if he remembers the story she told him about her father and their dog. She no longer wants to live. She had her shot and wants to die remembering the crowd cheering her name. Frankie refuses. Later Frankie is awoken in the middle of the night. Maggie has bitten her tongue, hoping to bleed to death. The doctors save her and stitch her tongue back up. She rips the stitches out and tries it again. This time they cover her tongue so she can't get to it.

Frankie now realizes how badly she wants to die and contemplates "slowly killing" her by letting her lives or ends her life while she is "living." Scrap tells him that most people die wondering "what if" and never having a chance at anything. He tells him that at least Maggie had her shot of a lifetime and is thinking "maybe I did alright."

Frankie decides to fulfill her wishes and end her life. He walks into her room, unnoticed. He tells her what he's going to do and she can only smile. He tells her that the Gaelic phrase the crowds were chanting and on her robe meant "My Darling". He removes her breathing tube and injects her with adrenaline. She dies instantly.

Beneath "Million Dollar Baby," there is a love story… A deep love story between two people with scars in their lives... Both are haunted by family problems… Maggie's family, led by her opportunistic mother is alternately cruel and exploitative… Frankie has an unloving daughter he writes to constantly, but his letters always returned unopened, unread and intact.

In the end of the movie we see Scrap writing a letter (to Frankie’s daughter) and we realize that the narration all along is this letter. He ends it along the lines of "...He never returned to the gym and I never saw him again. I'm sure he's somewhere between here and there but where ever he is, I'm sure he's doing just fine. I just wanted to let you know what kind of man Frankie was. I wanted to let you know what your father was like."

“Anyone can lose one fight"-Million Dollar Baby

No wonder this film got 4 Oscar for best picture, best director, best actress, best supporting role. Good film to watch.

Cheers

Xalv!s