This
film looked interesting in previews. After it won four
Oscars including Best Picture, I finally got around to
seeing it, without any advance information on what the
final twist was.
Frankie
Dunn (Clint Eastwood) owns a gym and trains and
manages boxers. He’s been around a long time, and
has pretty much seen it all. His sidekick, Eddie
“Scrap-Iron” Dupris (Morgan Freeman), lives at the
gym and keeps it in running order. Both are complex
characters whose backstory is slowly developed.
Frankie reads Gaelic in his quiet time. And he’s a
Roman Catholic who attends Mass daily and prays at his
bedside for the welfare of his long-estranged wife and
daughter. Eddie is a former fighter who lost his sight
in one eye because his manager didn’t bother to
attend the fight, and Frankie, who was in his corner
as a “cut specialist,” wasn’t authorized to
throw in the towel.
Carrying
lifetime guilt over a number of mistakes, Frankie is
over-cautious. He has a fighter who believes he’s
ready for a title fight. But Frankie wants him to do
two or three more bouts first. Always two or
three more. That fighter finally jumps ship, signs
with a high-octane manager and gets his title shot.
Meanwhile, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), a
31-year-old amateur fighter, has shown up at the gym,
paid six months’ dues in advance, and wants Frankie
to train her. Frankie says he doesn’t train girls.
She says she’s done well in bouts, and is tough.
Frankie says “Girl tough ain’t tough enough.”
Obviously, since this is a boxing movie setup,
she’ll persist until someone decides to help her.
First Eddie (on the sneak), and finally Frankie. He
trains her and then gets bouts for her, with
misgivings all the way.
The
storytelling and acting is outstanding, the
cinematography is excellent, the editing is seamless.
Overall, a completely engaging film. But because
it’s a propaganda piece, all those positives become
negatives. The violence is limited to fight-related
material, but it includes some characters beating up a
harmless, mentally challenged man who “trains” at
the gym for free. There’s no sexual content. Aside
from working a crummy waitress job to pay the bills,
Maggie’s single-minded devotion is fight training.
The relationship between Frankie and Maggie is that of
surrogate father and daughter. He gives her a
“fighter nickname” of “Mo Cuishle,” which is a
mis-spelling of the Gaelic “Mo Chuisle.” (Spoiler:
this literally means “My Pulse,” but idiomatically
means “My Darling.”) I’d wondered if the final
twist was going to be that Maggie really was
Frankie’s long-lost daughter. Nope.
The
language is strong at times, and a lot of it seems to
be crammed into the opening characterization scenes.
Frankie challenges his priest to defend what Frankie
considers arbitrary and non-provable Catholic
doctrines, and the priest calls Frankie a “F*
pagan.” The mentally challenged man repeatedly
assures Freeman’s character that he has nothing
against n*. One of the colorful gym characters needles
Maggie in extremely crude language about her lack of a
girlish figure (his purpose is not “sexual” but
“sexist;” he obviously doesn’t think she belongs
in the gym). Without missing a beat on the punching
bag, Maggie gives as good as she gets, effectively
making the other guy the butt of a joke and the target
of his buddies’ guffaws. The guys still don’t
accept her, but they leave her alone after that. She
may be a girl, but she’s “all right.”
Having
included numerous spoilers here already, I won’t
give away any details about the progress of Maggie’s
fighting career. Except to say that it ends with her
paralyzed and asking Frankie to “pull the plug.”
Frankie says he can’t do that. When he talks with
his priest about it, the priest reiterates that it’s
wrong, but he fails to give a reason why. Now the
reason for those early setup scenes becomes apparent.
Opposition to euthanasia is presented as just another
un-provable Catholic doctrine. Why doesn’t someone
point out that humans are made in the image of God,
and we don’t have the right to arbitrarily take
another person’s life or our own? Most everyone used
to understand that the way you show mercy to a
disabled person is the opposite of the way you show
mercy to a disabled dog. But somewhere along the way,
that common understanding has been lost.
The
tone of the ending is that it’s courageous to commit
suicide or assist someone to commit suicide, and wimpy
to refuse to do so, when the person’s “quality of
life” has been diminished. Assisted suicide was
previously glorified in the 1996 Best Picture Oscar
winner, The English
Patient. As I write this, my wife is working
hard on the Terri Schiavo case, corresponding
extensively with an appellate lawyer. Meanwhile,
Hollywood is making her job harder, and ultimately
putting all of us in danger. Although the quality of
this film is high, I don’t think it’s Best Picture
caliber. Once again, it appears that the Oscars are
awarded not for quality but for Political Correctness.
MILLION
DOLLAR BABY
The
storytelling and acting is outstanding, the
cinematography is excellent, the editing is seamless.
Overall, a completely engaging film. But because
it’s a propaganda piece, all those positives become
negatives. The violence is limited to fight-related
material, but it includes some characters beating up a
harmless, mentally challenged man who “trains” at
the gym for free. There’s no sexual content. Aside
from working a crummy waitress job to pay the bills,
Maggie’s single-minded devotion is fight training.
The relationship between Frankie and Maggie is that of
surrogate father and daughter. He gives her a
“fighter nickname” of “Mo Cuishle,” which is a
mis-spelling of the Gaelic “Mo Chuisle.” (Spoiler:
this literally means “My Pulse,” but idiomatically
means “My Darling.”) I’d wondered if the final
twist was going to be that Maggie really was
Frankie’s long-lost daughter. Nope.
Having
included numerous spoilers here already, I won’t
give away any details about the progress of Maggie’s
fighting career. Except to say that it ends with her
paralyzed and asking Frankie to “pull the plug.”
Frankie says he can’t do that. When he talks with
his priest about it, the priest reiterates that it’s
wrong, but he fails to give a reason why. Now the
reason for those early setup scenes becomes apparent.
Opposition to euthanasia is presented as just another
un-provable Catholic doctrine. Why doesn’t someone
point out that humans are made in the image of God,
and we don’t have the right to arbitrarily take
another person’s life or our own? Most everyone used
to understand that the way you show mercy to a
disabled person is the opposite of the way you show
mercy to a disabled dog. But somewhere along the way,
that common understanding has been lost.