Million Dollar Baby (USA) (Warner Bros) (2004) **Year: 2004iMDB
Director: Clint Eastwood Cast: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman
Clint Eastwood has already proven that he can produce great dramas and direct actors towards their best performances. Million Dollar Baby is, in a sense, no exception: a powerful drama with strong acting by the main characters. However, this time the characters are not developed beyond stereotypical archetypes: the strong trainer, full of character and integrity, who suffers because he alienated his daughter; the helper (Freeman) who was an ex-champion that pushed too far in his last game and had to pay by losing an eye; and of course the champion to be Maggie (Swank) who has potential, lots of ambition but lacks the proper training and discipline and has a selfish family that only remembers her when she's supposed to give them money. The story does not break the stereotypes either: Maggie is reluctantly accepted as an apprentice, she trains hard, starts winning fights, and reaches the game for the world championship where she meets an opponent worthy of a Spiderman cartoon rather than a serious drama...
Without spoiling the movie, I have to admit that Million Dollar Baby does take some different turns from the typical Rocky movie. However, after seeing another film this year that deals in much more depth with the same theme, I could not be impressed by the same story, especially since this time it felt more like an artificial ploy to increase the drama and support the message of the movie.
Posted by TheCasualCritic on January 12, 2005 12:43 AM | TrackBack