Million Dollar Movie!

Rating: 10/10 (22 January 2005)

This is one of the best movies I have ever seen. For me it ranks up there with The Shawshank Redemption. If you loved Shawshank, I promise you, you will love this. Both movies handle a subject we have seen many times before and do it so well that you can not imagine how it could ever be done any better. In this case, the done-to-death story-line is about a fighter who wants to get her shot at the title and the hard-headed trainer who reluctantly takes her on. Don't be fooled by the story-line though. This is no Rocky. Million Dollar Baby is to Rocky as a diamond is to some cheap quartz imitation.
Hilary Swank creates such a believable character you'll have a hard time thinking she was acting. I hope to see her in the Oscars in some designer dress with a two-thousand dollar hair-do. I will be glad in more ways than one since it will destroy my image of her as an honest, hard-working, tough and yet vulnerable woman worth loving.
Morgan Freeman is absolutely and utterly wonderful, again, as usual.
As for Clint Eastwood. Well, some actors and directors get better with age. Clint Eastwood isn't just getting better. He is so far ahead of his contemporaries already he'll have to cut off an arm (well maybe both arms and possibly a leg) to let the others catch up with him.
After seeing this movie I thought about it a long time trying to understand why it had such an emotional effect on me. Deep down I guess its about choosing your road in life and going where it takes you. No complaints. No regrets. What really hits home is the love the characters have for one another. The sort of love you reserve for people who walked down that road with you. The people who you'd want to be with in your final moments.
I can not understand the mind-set of people who voted 1 for this movie. I can only guess they are other movie directors. Excellent 10/10.