"Mo Cuishle", My Darling, My Blood

Rating: 8/10 (1 April 2005)

I just came back from the theater after watching this year's Top Movie so far........
"Million Dollar Baby", is one heck of a ride. It takes us through the various emotions of human life from betrayal to love, anguish, grief, faith and lastly determination. It is a story of a young American waitress living in extreme poverty whose ambition is to be a WBA Champ....
But to be a champ, you need a trainer and the best person to that is Frankie... Frankie himself has a lot of tragedies in his life, that of being an unsuccessful husband and father..... He considers himself at fault at losing his friend and colleague, Morgan Freeman's right eye.....
But he is the best trainer around, and he doesn't train girls, especially not over aged girls..... But when his fighter dumps him, things take a turn and soon we find him at the corner of Maggie Fritgerald, the Mo Cuishle.....
Maggie wins matches, mostly through knockouts, becomes famous and buys herself out of poverty but her own family, a bitch of a mother and assholes of siblings look at her as a money pond....
She gets a shot at the title, and she has control of the match when the champ, does a dirty trick on her causing her a spinal cord fracture....
This leads to the end of her career, as she is stuck to her bed, eventually her legs had to be amputated due to infection, and she is left crippled, for life.....
But the "Mo Cuishle" is a born fighter and she convinces her 'Boss' to kill her and instead of letting her live this pathetic life.... Her death drives away Frankie fro m the regular training job and he reclines himself to a street side diner eating lemon pies.....
The entire story of the movie is superb and though the dialog is slightly weak in nature the acting qualities overshadows it pretty easily.... The sound effects are outstanding and so is the cinematography.... The music is also very soothing to the ear.... The camera work is amazing, especially during the fights.....
A special mention has to be made for Hilary Swank, for an outstanding performance.... She really took the movie into another level... Morgtan Freeman was also very impressive, in his part as the ex-boxer and the caretaker of the Gym..... Clint Eastwood looked slightly overshadowed by these two, and it is probably because of the lack of strong dialogs... Especially after the accident, the dialogs were very weak, and that may be the only part, where the movie looked vulnerable.....
Overall a thumbs up and a 8/10.....