Far from knock-out

Rating: 6/10 (16 May 2005)

There are some good boxing movies, but they all share the same problems: The boxing scenes aren't realistic. In "Million Dollar Baby" we meet the same problem. There are raw swings here, that wouldn't be accepted even by drunken gold miners in the West. It's obvious, also to a boxing ignorant.
But surely Hillary Swank is good and Clint Eastwood too. But until the last half hour, you can't understand all the fuzz about this, except for the famous people who are in it. Swank does the boxing trash broad who fights herself up. You have seen it before, I promise.
But in the end there is a discussion about existentialist matters, that you hadn't expected and Swank is really great here. It doesn't save this picture, but make it bearable.