Rating of
3/4
Review - Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Delorted - wrote on 11/07/07
Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) was never the greatest boxing trainer. He could get a man to fight well, but never to win a championship. When he met Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), however, all of this changed in the Best Picture winning film, "Million Dollar Baby."
This film is remarkably similar to Unforgiven in both the mood and the quality of acting (not to mention Morgan Freeman playing an important side character again, Eddie Dupris). Clint Eastwood is a great director. I won't lie. He can get somebody to do his bidding by only saying two or three words. The only problem is that this doesn't work on himself. Eastwood always seems like he spent so much time working on everybody else's acting that he forgot to work on his own. Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I can continue.
"Million Dollar Baby" is by far one of the most emotionally unemotional films I have ever seen. While there is a lot to feel in the film, it doesn't push that extra limit to actually make you feel it. It almost of makes me sad that it had so much potential, but if it actually did make me sad I wouldn't be complaining.
Another problem with this film is that it's so forgettable. While it may have been dubbed the Best Picture of 2004, that's really all it is. It just seems that it won't go down in history as a great movie. I think in the future it will be similar to movies such as The Best Years of Our Lives or How Green Was My Valley, which both won the award but are rarely ever thought of as having done so.
While the movie may be well done, "Million Dollar Baby" just doesn't have that kick that it needed to make it a classic film. Luckily Eastwood's past is filled with enough movies to keep his name around for a long, long time.
Acting: 9/10
Writing: 7/10
Video/Editing: 8/10
Audio/Music: 7/10
Entertainment: 6/10
Final Score: 7.4/10
