The baby who can't reach the million dollar target

Rating: 6/10 (9 February 2005)

Million Dollar Baby is Clint Eastwood's most recent appearance on big screen after Bloodwork. Witb the strong cast of Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman together with Eastwood himself, it was supposed to be one of his best films he made.
However, i would say i prefer his previous production, Mystic River.
Million Dollar Baby is more of a journey of how Maggie Fitzgerald, which was portrayed by Hilary Swank, becomes a female boxer, whom she insisted to be trained by ex-fighter, Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), who now runs a old gym, together with his previous fighter, Eddie Scrap (Freeman). This somehow goes a distance from what the plot should be.
Million Dollar Baby do not have the suspense of Mystic River, but magnifies the ugliness of human being. From the style of how the boxer fights, the training session in the gym to Maggie mother's attitude on preferring money over a new house when Maggie bought a new house for her family members, Eastwood brings in the ugliness to the audience through the group of less fortunates social level.
Hilary Swank makes another excellent performance after her award winning role in Boy's Don't Cry. Morgan Freeman, on the other hand, seems to be suffering from malnutrition in terms of dialogue. He doesn't have much dialogue in the film, and neither did he make any breakthrough performances. However, he narrates the film, which will be discuss later.
Now back to Eastwood. His performance as a former boxer cum Maggie's coach has not been affected by his 'cowboy image' from his previous well-known cowboy shows. But in terms of direction, it brings back the wordy dialogue, minus the suspense.
What makes the movie watchable was the narration by Freeman. Beginning with how Eastwood becomes a trainer, Freeman tells the story of the main characters through his eyes and his experience. If the film was narrated by Eastwood, it would gives us another side of the story, which can make Million better.
In all, the baby fails to earn an million, but managed to earned 3/5 of a million.
There are times where