The POWER of MERCY

Rating: Null/10 (23 December 2004)

This is by far Clint Eastwoods darkest film and I'm don't mean just the color timing of the negative either. Nothing quite prepares you for the turn in which this film takes three quarters into the picture. From then on MILLION DOLLAR BABY becomes extremely difficult to watch. Several times during the course of the film I looked behind me to see people in the audience either squirming in their seats or covering their eyes.
What I find extraordinary about this picture is that Eastwood directed this powerful film while at the same time delivering the best performance of his career. Everyone is good in this with Eastwood and Freeman being the standouts.
The scene in the hospital room when the family visits the paralyzed Maggie is nothing short of riveting. The boxing scenes are handled straight forward, intelligently and aren't played for audience manipulation the way they are in movies like ROCKY.
However, for all it's realism there is a big gaping hole in the script. There is NO WAY Eastwood's character would have been allowed to walk into that hospital room at NIGHT without being stopped. A visitor just can't walk in and out of a patient's room anytime they feel like it. There are nurses, staff and office administrators monitoring a hospital 24 hours a day. Nobody has free access anytime they want. Visitors are always screened. Patients are monitored all night long and if they flatline in the middle of the night the signal is transfered to the hospital data base and detected immediately. There would have been someone rushing into that room. Eastwood just stands there looking at her.
That notwithstanding, the images in this movie will stay with you long after you've walked out of the theatre, so I suggest you see an afternoon screening. The sunshine will help off set the gloomy and gut wrenching aspects of the story. It's like a very dark THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN. The film doesn't lie to you.
Indeed, MILLION DOLLAR BABY does bring up questions of assisted suicide. And if you're the type of person who regularly entertains thoughts of taking your own life . . . this film will either turn you off to the idea completely or help to encourage you. It has the power of mercy written all over it.