Tries too hard to be both drama and comedy

Rating: 6/10 (19 March 2005)

I have really enjoyed a few of the movies that Clint Eastwood has directed, but this was not one of them.
The story overall was quite good, and could have presented the viewer with an interesting and involving story. Instead what I found was characters that did not seem real and a plot progression that didn't feel right. It was the details that didn't work for me. A few words and a few scenes here and there that just yanked me away from the movie, leaving me feeling no attachment at all to the characters.
I think that they went all out in the many comedic scenes, so that once they put those same characters into serious scenes, it felt like an adaptation of a comic book -- not very believable. I kept on thinking of the scenes in the first Spider-Man movie when he went to that fight, not very real, but fun to watch. I enjoyed the comedic and action side of Million Dollary Baby, but it left the dramatic side feeling pretty distant and surreal.
Surprisingly, I found my favourite character in the movie was not either of the two leads, but the secondary character "Scraps", who was played by Morgan Freeman. He felt far more real and believable than the others in this film.
My rating of this movie is 6/10.