Million Dollar Baby

Rating: 10/10 (23 July 2005)

Compared to what I normally see come out of Tinsel Town, this is wonderful. One thing though, did you notice that Dunn walks past his fighter when she is working the heavy bag, she is winded, he tells her, "you can rest when your dead", very ominous warning, also remember how the music became very dark and haunting when the champion comes into the ring. You just knew something tragic was going to happen. Earlier in the film Freemans character is talking about the champs style and fighting ability. They show her hitting a fighter who is on one knee, then another scene where she wrenches on the other fighters head and throws her to the ground, knocking the ref down also, they don't show her throwing elbows but she does in the fight Dunns challenger, this is very common in boxing, especially when fighters are in close throwing hooks at the head, they let there elbows follow thru where the glove would have been, anyway you would have figured that Dunn would have expected this champion to do these things again, but when she elbows, throws her shoulder and elbow to knock down her challenger, then his the fighter while she is on one knee, Dunn acts totally surprised at this and stares at her corner, then the fatal blow after the bell was horrible, it just seemed odd that Dunn didn't tell her to expect very dirty tactics and never take her eyeball off that woman at any moment. Although Dunn did tell his fighter to fight dirty right back as soon as he realized there was no getting around it. Everybody who watched that film up to that point was ready for Dunns fighter to become champion and live happily ever after, not so, and the way the movie leaves the fight game, with nothing from the other boxer or any kind of closure to the championship fight, nothing, not one thing, just a quadraplegic who asks her only friend to allow her to expire, thats tough stuff.