Million Dollar Baby (PG-13, 2004)

Tired old trainer Frankie (Clint Eastwood), abandoned by the prospect he hoped to take to the title bout, meets a scrappy but untrained would-be boxer. He initially refuses to train the kid, but he's won over, at first by the persistence, then by the heart of the young fighter. There's another connection between them, too. Frankie has no family but a long-estranged daughter, and the boxer's father is dead. The bond between them helps to ease both of their losses. One reason the relationship becomes so important to Frankie is that the boxer is a young woman. Maggie (Hillary Swank) gives Frankie the chance to bring all that's best in him to a nurturing relationship with a young woman about the age of his daughter, and Frankie gives Maggie the chance to be a champion.

At first, MILLION DOLLAR BABY is a fresh, assured, and evocative take on the classic boxing formula. The details of the boxing world and Frankie's relationships with Maggie and with his long-time friend Eddie (Morgan Freeman, who also narrates) are warm and richly observed. Frankie and Eddie have the bickering banter of a longtime married couple, and pros Eastwood and Freeman riff off each other like jazz players who've been jamming for a lifetime. Eastwood is also marvelous with Swank in a performance that's fuller, fonder, and funnier than we've seen from him since the Any Which Way But Loose days. For the first half of the film, the narration, based on F.X. Toole's superb book and beautifully read by Freeman, is so vivid we can smell sweat and adrenaline.

Too bad Million Dollar Baby takes those great performances and throws some cliched sports metaphors their way. And when tragedy strikes, Frankie and Maggie have to make some tough choices. So does director Eastwood, and he makes the wrong ones, going for the manipulative and the maudlin, everyone lining up as either saintly or unredeemably awful.

Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman
Genre: Drama
Run time: 132 minutes
Theatrical release: December 15, 2004
DVD release: July 12, 2005
MPAA Rating: PG-13
MPAA explanation: violence, some disturbing images, thematic material and language