Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Clint Eastwood cleaned up at the 2005 Oscars for this hard hitting boxing drama that sports a magnificent turn from Hilary Swank as an aspiring boxer who has been a waitress all her life until she joins Frankie's (Eastwood) gym. Eastwood was Seventy-Four when he won the Best Director gong for this twenty years ago, and his latest film Juror No.2, is scheduled for release at some point this year.

The man is astonishing in his longevity, as well as the solidity of his film making. Although you'd be hard pressed to call all of his films as director masterpieces, you'd do well to find someone working today who has produced such a consistent level over such a long period. His last film, Cry Macho (2021), was a very rare misstep and a rather surprising one considering the subject matter and vistas on display, but he has made at least one masterpiece since Million Dollar Baby (2004); 2008's Changeling, which remains up there with Unforgiven (1992) as his finest work behind the camera.

Million Dollar Baby is a hard hitting piece which, as a boxing drama, strips away the lighter touches of Rocky (1976) and cements its tone nearer to Raging Bull (1980). That's not to say there aren't small comedic moments; Eastwood's gruff boxing trainer Frankie bounces off his friend and employee Eddie (Morgan Freeman) nicely, and he eventually builds a respectful and playful rapport with Swank's Maggie that builds until the film's crushing last quarter or so.

Eastwood loves a blue/grey colour palette; following this it's something that worked terrifically well as a war backdrop in his double bill of Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima (both 2006), and in Million Dollar Baby it's particularly effective in pronouncing the decrepit and worn-down look and feel of Frankie's gym. It appears the business is bleeding money, so when Maggie turns up and starts training, Frankie is initially reticent about allowing her to do so; when he learns that she's paid six months membership up front, he's less prohibitive of her presence.

Frankie loses a promising prodigy that he's training towards a title fight early on, and it's abundantly clear where we're going in terms of Frankie's future role in Maggie's development- but this never takes away from your engagement in the film. Eastwood himself is never less than hugely watchable, even if he loves portraying similar characters; Frankie could almost be the brother of Walt in Gran Torino (2008) and the same could be said of Morgan Freeman here. Both hold steady in a one-two punch of a partnership that offers nothing particularly original, but paves the way for Swank to step in and make the film her own. Even though Freeman's Eddie is the narrator of the story, it rarely feels like his film; he's telling the tale of Frankie and his absent daughter through the prism of Frankie's burgeoning relationship with Maggie, who is the beating heart of the piece.

All of this leads to yet another excellent Clint Eastwood film that is at times a hard watch, but never because the material is anything less than terrific. Million Dollar Baby isn't his best film as a director, but it is one of his most emotional, and although it might feel like two different films by the end of it, the fact that you feel the way that you do at its conclusion means it's done something very right. 8.0/10