Good but not great

Rating: Null/10 (9 February 2005)

Million Dollar Baby had some strong emotional moments but it was still too Hollywood for my tastes. Direction and lighting was very pedestrian and Eastwood repeated mannerisms and speech patterns he has used a thousand times before. Also, whatever way you look at it, boxing is a brutal blood sport and you have to question the mentality and character of anyone who is mixed up in it. They don't easily attract my sympathy. The fact that Swank's character did, made her performance the best thing about the movie for me.
Believability issues I had a problem with:
Could we really expect anyone to be able to entertain themselves by punching a bag repeatedly for 12 or more hours a day as Swank's character does for the first half of the movie? And where would she find the energy to do this as well as take a long run along the beach every morning and hold a job as a waitress, all the time living on food scraps from the tables?
Could we really expect anyone to repeatedly send numerous (thick) letters to someone who never responds as Frank does to his estranged daughter?
Could we really expect Frank's priest not to inform the cops after he does what he does? Sure, he disappears but when he stops showing up at church, wouldn't the priest be morally compelled to investigate further? The police would become involved and his fate would no longer be a mystery.