Million Dollar Baby

Review by Clint Morris

When I was younger my folks gave me a bottle of wine that bore my birth year.

They told me not to drink it (just as well they did too, it would've made a nice change from Fruity Lexia at the local lake on a Saturday night), not only because of the connotation of being purchased to coincide with the birth of their tyke, but because wine only gets better with age.

Not unlike Clint Eastwood if you think about it - and he doesn't come with a label forewarning his best before date either.

Unlike a lot of his peers, the multi-talented Eastwood has embraced his age in recent years - he's played folks with all the aches, bumps and memories of someone that age, from ageing cowboys to the superannuated guy working the President's security detail - and it's worked in his favour.

Some of the film's the Malpaso chairman has made since Dirty Harry Callahan retired have been the finest efforts a hardtop's played host to, and each new one he makes, we only seem to anticipate that little bit more.

Million Dollar Baby is the latest wholly created Eastwood effort and in short, it's another solid effort, proficiently directed, punctiliously written, lustrously performed.

On the surface, Baby projects itself as a simple boxing story, the tale of an old time manager (Eastwood) that reluctantly agrees to train a down-on-her-luck female (Hilary Swank) how to swing like the best. That may be true for the first half of the movie, but as we begin to get to know Frankie Dunn - an emotionally closed, sour individual, whose become estranged from his only daughter - and the determined Maggie Fitzgerald, an emotionally scared hillbilly whose only happiness in life comes from the knowing that she's a talent in the ring, we realise there's the template's much more interested in lost souls and fictive gallantry.

You've stepped into the wrong theatre if you're looking for Rocky. Here you'll find a film that's not as concerned about whether it's contender wins the fight, as long as she does it with a friend by her side.

Baby does succumb to clichés in spots, does cop out on some of the details too, but, all in all, this is a solid film from start to end.

Eastwood is his usual dependable solid self, Swank is exceptionally memorable, and Morgan Freeman (re-teaming with Eastwood, whom he worked on Unforgiven with) is a welcome third-wheel as Scap, an ex-boxer who runs Dunn's gym.

The Aviator might fly to welcome levels, Ray might play to a pleasing beat, but Million Dollar Baby is an absolute knockout - one of those great films the likes of which you just don't see enough of anymore. If Clint Eastwood is any indication - yep, guess who was named after the matinee king? - it's far from time to retire that bottle of wine just yet.

4 out of 5

Million Dollar Baby
Australian release: Thursday February 3rd, 2005
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Jay Baruchel, Mike Colter.
Director: Clint Eastwood.
Website: Click here.

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