Heartwrenchingly powerful...it's a movie that nearly anyone can relate to and enjoy

Rating: 9/10 (12 March 2006)

'Million Dollar Baby' was the first Oscar winning screenplay written by Paul Haggis (Crash). Directed by film legend Clint Eastwood, MDB is nearly perfect in every aspect of film making. When you see this, the acting of Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and especially Hilary Swank will leave you moved. Deserving of all the accolades it received, MDB is not only the best picture of 2004, but one of the best in history.
Frankie (Eastwood) is a very hardworking and talented boxing trainer, getting the most out of his fighters, even if their talent isn't Ali or Louis caliber. His most talented fighter has just left him (you see this in the movie) for more money, but is very sad he has to do so, and thanks Frankie by saying that he taught him all he would ever need to know. Then, one day, Frankie and his custodian (Freeman, who lives in the boxing gym) notice a young woman (Swank), Maggie Fitzgerald, punching a bag like clockwork every day. Frankie is at first annoyed by the upstart lady, rapidly declining her request that he train her. Over time, when Maggie tells her story of poverty, financial struggle, and desire to become a champion to Frankie, he reluctantly agrees to train her until she finds a manager. After Frankie decides to fully train and manage her, we see Maggie's success skyrocket. What ensues are some pretty intense boxing scenes. Also what begins is a fantastically acted father-daughter relationship between Frankie and Maggie.
We begin to see Maggie's success and popularity soar, and we get more insight into her life, especially her troubled past, consisting of a neglecting mother who we will grow to hate. Swank's performance as Maggie is so good that you will love Maggie so much for her determination to becoming a champion and her kick-ass approach in the ring. All the while, we get a preview of Maggie's ultimate opponent, a ruthless and dirty fighter, a fight which will scare the squeamish. It is hard to go on further without spoiling the plot, which I will not do.
The best acting of the movie comes after Maggie's big fight, and it is the reason the movie won so many awards. Eastwood's portrayal of Frankie's inner-struggle in life because of boxing over the years is just great. If not for Jamie Foxx's brilliant portrayal of Ray Charles, Eastwood would've won the Best Actor Oscar last year. Hilary Swank delivers one of the best performances in history as the chipper and lovable Maggie, and Morgan Freeman, while I have not mentioned him too much in this review, is once again great as usual. He is Frankie's right hand man, adviser, and best friend. What you'll notice is that each character will have a scene that defines their performance. Eastwood's is the last scene of the movie, Freeman's is in the middle-end of the movie when he is cleaning something, and Swank's is virtually every scene she is in. That's how good she is.
As I said before, it's really hard to review this movie without giving away plot details, and while I'm doing a horrible job of hiding that fact, Eastwood's direction and Haggis's writing do an excellent job of making the movie's most important events come out of nowhere to get to you. In most movies, you feel like you're just watching a fictitious adventure that's pretty cool. This is not the case. You'll feel as if you are getting a look into Frankie and Maggie's lives, and that is the mark of a job well done. You'll get the same feeling when watching 'Crash', which I've also reviewed. I'll admit, I watched this movie at my school's auditorium a few weeks ago because they showed it to kids who were excused from testing, but I decided to watch carefully and I'm glad I did. There's one other fact that made this movie so good: Never before had I seen something or someone that could silence 300 teenagers, but this movie did.
9/10 --spy