Move over Raging Bull, you have a sister

Rating: 9/10 (9 January 2005)

With the release of Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood has officially entered the sweepstakes for golden statues in 2005. Already nominated for Five Golden Globes including Best Picture and Director, expect the same when the Academy announces its category finalists on January 25.
Written by Paul Haggis (a Canadian that has spent most of his time writing for the small screen) and based on stories by longtime boxing manager and cutman Jerry Boyd (under the pen name, F.X Toole), the story surrounds boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) who reluctantly takes on a persistent female boxer named Maggie (Hilary Swank).
The start of the film is textbook storytelling and you can see most of what is going to happen before it unfolds. Dunn is the reclusive manager that is reluctant to take on a female as a client believing that boxing is a sport for the Y-Chromosome's only - "Girlie tough is not tough enough" he mutters.
But when a career waitress with aspirations of making a name for herself in the ring shows up in the gym with a work ethic that continues long after the lights are turned out, Dunn becomes intrigued by her determination and takes her under his tutelage.
It is here that that Million Dollar Baby begins to separate itself from the formulaic. Although there is plenty of ringside action, the movie somehow is able to have the gruesome boxing matches as only a back drop for what becomes a budding relationship between the two leads. Match after match and day after day, Dunn and Maggie become closer, sharing each others hopes and dreams and inviting each to share in family experiences.
But just when you think you have figured out where Million Dollar Baby is headed, it takes a sharp turn. One of those turns that we as critics like to see but hate when we have to review. The last third of the movie revolves around the consequences and situations of the device and it would be a disservice to anyone reading a review to have it revealed.
So, we focus on the positives of the first two-thirds. The wonderful understated performance by Morgan Freeman (together again with Eastwood after 1991's, Unforgiven), as former boxer Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris, for example. Freeman is the driving force of the growing relationship between the two leads and pushes the story along with such subtlety and effortless motion as to put him also in line for a golden nomination.
Even the tiny little subplots work well to create atmosphere and build character. The characters that participate in daily training at Dunn's gym, Maggie's trailer-living family and Dunn's estranged daughter are all crafted masterfully by director Eastwood into telling a moving story that will haunt you long after you leave the theatre.
Client Eastwood struck gold with Mystic River last year and hits the same vein with Million Dollar Baby. It is his 25th attempt behind the camera and he just gets better with experience (I will forgive him for Bloodwork, but barely). I think this new career high for Eastwood is because he simply 'gets it'. He understands that life doesn't have happy endings all the time. That movies don't have to put an aging acting icon together romantically with a young budding actress in order to get audiences to take notice. And that movies can just end when they should, not all wrapped in a bow.
It is surprising for this writer how boxing movies have had more critical success than any other sporting depiction despite the fact that the sport itself is in a time of mistrust, arguable decisions and no true heavyweight icon like Ali and Foreman were back in its heyday. But when you take the Rocky's, Raging Bull's and now Million Dollar Baby into account you can argue that not even the Field of Dreams, Pride of the Yankees and Eight Men Out's can stand as consistently proud of their output.
That noted, Million Dollar Baby stands alone. Alone as a boxing movie. Alone as a character study, and alone as maybe the best film of 2004.
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