- CONTRIBUTED
Clint Eastwood as Frankie, Morgan Freeman as Scrap and Hilary Swank as Maggie in the Academy Award winning movie 'Million Dollar Baby'.
MILLION DOLLAR Baby is an admirable combination of an emotional human drama mixed with a sports film to give it some extra punch. The film stars Clint Eastwood, who also directs and produces, Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank who all took home statuettes from the recent Oscars.
So to flag a post Oscar horse, Million Dollar Baby is marked by beautiful performances. Eastwood takes on the role of Frankie, a boxing trainer who has seen better days. He is easily convincing as the gruff trainer. Despite the wrinkles and age spots, Eastwood is still quite believable as a rather cold man.
HAUNTING MISTAKES
Frankie is not merely a grumpy old man; he is cold, the kind of man who made haunting mistakes in his past. However, Eastwood is not as coldly cruel as his most popular characters from the spaghetti westerns to Dirty Harry and even Unforgiven, proving to be convincingly humane in this performance.
Anyone who has seen Unforgiven already knows that Eastwood and Freeman have great onscreen chemistry, and once again their magic shines. The two play old men, who with their prime in the distant, but hardly forgotten past, have been together long enough and understand each other well enough that they need not speak too much to communicate.
As with The Shawshank Redemption (though this character is quite different) Morgan Freeman also doubles as narrator, which is important to the pulse and emotion of the film. His performance, is engaging and filled with nuance, but then again he is Morgan Freeman and that is expected.
In many ways, Million Dollar Baby follows the path of the classic underdog story. Maggy (Swank) steps into the ring when she is past the first blush of youth, which would mean that even the possibility of learning to box well is slim. Her bravery is inspiring, especially when one realises that the real beating she has to recover from is the brutal pounding that life has dealt out, largely through her family, a group of welfare gurus.
Rather than focus on Maggy's development as a boxer, the film looks deeply at the growth of her relationship with her trainer and reluctant manager Frankie. Soon, despite her calling him "boss," they seem more like father and daughter. This is in large part how Million Dollar Baby departs from the sports movie formulae. Indeed, though there are few adrenaline rush moments when Maggy is in the ring; the movie's best moments take place outside of it.
MORE THAN VISCERAL PLEASURES
It's really not surprising that Million Dollar Baby gives more than visceral pleasures of people being pummelled to death (or pretty close), as that is the direction that Eastwood has been heading for some time. His movies continue to offer bloody violence, but now with more reason than that he's good with a Smith and Wesson. So, while Million Dollar Baby does not shy away from the brutality of boxing, it does not revel in it either.
It's a good movie, well directed with thoughtful cinematography that adds mood and meaning to the scenes. Though in a large part it champions the underdog, it's about more than making us feel good. It's about the harsh realities of life and the recognition that sometimes when life knocks you down you simply cannot get up, you simply have to know when to take the good that you won and leave the ring.
- Tanya Batson-Savage
