Rocky: The Debbie Downer Version

Rating: 6/10 (5 February 2005)

"Million Dollar Baby" is a lean, mean, fighting machine of a movie, pulling no punches and throwing no towels. It stars Clint Eastwood as a ringside "cut man," Morgan Freeman as his gym manager buddy, and Hilary Swank as a struggling waitress who seeks glory in the sweet science.
I wish I could say I loved it. I think I liked it, because the acting is awesomely good and the story has its moments. It's a film with merit. But there are people in the world who like movies like this and "Terms Of Endearment" and "Rocket Gibraltar" because they like movies that make them feel. "Million Dollar Baby" made me feel, too, feel confused at what the dialogue was on screen in the latter part of the picture with all the sniffling in the theater.
Eastwood as a director has a definite style, one that complements his acting métier. Terse lines, acerbically delivered. Some laughs, preferably dry ones. Camera-work that tends to the dark and monochromatic. "Million Dollar Baby" as a story suits his direction well.
Eastwood as an actor has never let go the way he does here. He's awesome in several scenes, quietly breaking apart. He has to give it all he's got, though, because he's working opposite Hilary Swank, who just tears your heart out with those eyes, that big-toothed grin, and the way she delivers lines like "You gotta do me a favor, boss." There's a scene with her just sitting in a car, making eye contact with a little girl and her dog from across a gas pump, and that wordless scene is probably the best piece of acting in any film this year. Freeman is good, too, reading comic books and working on getting his friend to warm to the girl with the gloves.
The rest of the supporting cast is disappointingly one note. Swank's Maggie Fitzgerald has a trailer-trash family who wear their nastiness like tourist-trap T-shirts. No subtlety. There's a priest that glowers at Eastwood's Frankie Dunn and his wry questioning in such a way one wonders how he handles hearing confessions, and one nasty German boxing opponent who does everything short of don a swastika in the ring.
The story is kind of rote, too, all very montage and quickly edited to discourage deep thought. Just what does this boxer find in "Boss" Frankie to make her suddenly so powerful in the ring? I know, you say the power of love. But there has to be something more, and it's lightly explained.
So is the run for a boxing title, which is handled in a way that feels like Cliff Notes, with a series of one-punch knockouts from Fitzgerald that neither ring true nor set up the dramatic tension needed to propel the story past the rags-to-riches cliché. There's also some business with some characters around the gym, like a mentally retarded man who gets picked on, but it's so truncated with the focus on the Fitzgerald story it feels like the padding it no doubt is.
I think the main performances are so incredible, they carry the rest of the film with them. In time, though, people may not be as wowed with "Million Dollar Baby" as they are now.
"Million Dollar Baby" is good, solid entertainment through the first two thirds, then takes a very challenging turn that probably cost it some admirers. It's very engaging, and then it tears you up, and you will carry the experience of seeing the film for a long time, longer than maybe you want to. You can't fault a film for making you sad, or for being manipulative. But I think the films that endure are the ones that don't forcefeed you with emotions the way you are fed them here.