Conservative mythologies

Rating: Null/10 (26 January 2005)

MILLION DOLLAR BABY is Clint Eastwood's bode and homage to the world of traditional conservative values of the poor pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, the tough-love authoritarian father figure, and the stereotype hatred of poor white trash welfare chiselers. In many of Eastwood's films, the former mayor of Carmel puts forward a world of simplistic virtue and moralistic black and white that you often see old men in diners declaim as lost to sophistry and complexity.
In MDB Eastwood's characters all verge on flat one-dimensional stereotypes, Morgan Freeman (puts in a good performance that defies its shallowness on paper) plays the washed-up boxer who lives in the storage closet of the gym. Hillary Swank is a desperate waitress who tries to escape grinding poverty and trailer trash ignorance by looking for a strong father-like authoritarian who, at first, attempts to disabuse her of foolish ambitions. The worse one-dimensional stereotypes come from Eastwoods depiction of Maggies family of crooks and overweight baby-producing welfare cheats.
The cartoon-like script treatment of the characters throws you out of the film's narrative and do not serve the excellent acting by Swank and Freeman. This is carefully contrived political ideology that ends with the well-worn emotional manipulation verging on melodrama. Eastwood would do better if he stuck to good storytelling and avoid broad swipes at political characterization.