Not as good as they say

Rating: Null/10 (11 March 2005)

I'm going to be a contrarian on Million Dollar Baby. To give the movie its due, Clint Eastwood, Hillary Swank, and Morgan Freeman all do fine jobs as actors. The movie is OK but not amazing except near the end. I have two problems with it, though. One is minor and one is major. The minor one is that the foreshadowing was really obvious. I knew Maggie would break her neck when the comment was made early in the film about how far a neck can go. I also knew she was going to get killed once she became a quadriplegic because of the earlier story about her father and the dog. I'm not usually very good at knowing what will happen in a movie, and when I do know what to expect I take that as a sign of a bad movie.
My more serious issue, though, is with the euthanasia. I'll agree that being a quadriplegic is real bad, but I'm also sure that most quadriplegics want to die and somehow get through it. Frankie didn't really try very hard to dissuade Maggie from her idea of being killed. He didn't get counseling for her and didn't really do much else other than talk to the priest about his own issues. Frankie gave Maggie the easy way out and should not be considered heroic. The message of the film is that euthanasia is a convenient way to handle medical problems. This is not a good message.