I know so many have said this before, but... WHY is there not a ZERO on IMDb??!!

Rating: 1/10 (21 August 2010)

Between "Million Dollar Baby" and "The Sea Inside," the 2004 Oscars were really giving the euthanasia theme a run for its money. All the same, it would be wrong to label "Million Dollar Baby" as euthanasia propaganda. For one thing, it cannot hold a candle to "The Sea Inside," a film which, as disgusting as it may have been morally, accomplished its mission much more elegantly on both a literal level (characters, plot, cinematography, direction/acting) and a figurative level (politics, left-wing: euthanasia). I don't know why, but Latin filmmakers just seem so much more adept at weaving beautiful productions out of banal leftist tripe than are their Anglo counterparts (see "Motorcycle Diaries" versus "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" for a more explicitly Marxist example).
Having said that, I don't believe that "Million Dollar Baby" was even conceived as a "pro-euthanasia" film. I know Clint Eastwood has had run-ins with disability organizations and perhaps his sense of humour is sick enough that he thought this a funny way of spitting in their faces. It is not, of course, a comedy on any level, and no one will laugh at any time during this film unless it be out of pity for poor Mr. Eastwood. Probably the only solid point in the movie is its lambasting of generations-removed Irish-Americans' obsession with "the home country," but even that is too heavy-handed to really be all that comic.
Let's start with Maggie. Hilary Swank, who was terrific as the bimbo Kimberly in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (the good one; i.e., the movie, not the show), can never be anything but annoying, and therefore ruins any character we are supposed to take seriously. However, the character of Maggie is also annoying AS WRITTEN—now, mind you, this would be fine if this were intentional and comic, but it is not. Eastwood actually seems to expect us to take Maggie seriously. Or does he? Perhaps Eastwood, like me, finds the idea that some sweet-little 32-year-old trailer-park child would become a world-class boxer absolutely ludicrous. Perhaps, then, the more overtly ridiculous scenes with Maggie's family weren't so out of place. Perhaps there is real comedy in the fact that all the critics and Oscar voters actually took this seriously—and perhaps this comedy is what Eastwood wanted all along.
The same could be said of Frankie. Tormented by the mountain of returned unopened letters he sends to his daughter, he babies poor little Maggie as though she were his own Karate Action Barbie doll and, when she's had enough of everything in life, struggles between granting this unrealistic poupée one truly uninspiring request and following the solid advice of an equally unrealistic priest. Once Frankie makes his decision, it is clear that he is unhappy with himself. So the movie actually makes no statement whatsoever about euthanasia or about the Catholic Church; the whole last 45 minutes are just a sort of farcical pornography of controversy. Idiotic critics and audiences just drool over this brand of emotional manipulation, thus explaining the obscene amount of cash raked in as well as the wholly undeserved Oscar.
In all this, then, Eastwood shows himself to be as nihilistic as he did in "Mystic River," only that film actually had me convinced almost up until the ending and at least waited until then to collapse on itself and induce vomit from the viewers. "Million Dollar Baby" is unbelievable from the very start. If you haven't yet seen it, may I suggest that you preserve your virgin eyes; there is nothing in here of value to the canon of cinema.