Million dollar baby maggie12/18/2022 Frankie is a brilliant but unsuccessful boxing trainer who train a lot of excellent boxers but lack of success. Obviously, the screenwriters wanted you to see Frankie at his height so you could appreciate his plunge.The theme of this story is achieving the American Dream of riches and fame, it’s also about the need for love and support. And if Clint's boxing dialogue hadn't been so stilted and the wisdom he imparted to Maggie so painfully hokey, I might have forgiven that opening plot device. If the movie had opened with Maggie walking into Frankie's gym in her waitress outfit and pathetically punching a bag, I'd have been intrigued. Time out: I'm supposed to suffer punch-drunk amnesia and forget that Maggie had won a fight on the undercard of a fighter one step from a heavyweight title bout? They start from scratch, with Maggie taking on the weakest competition. Frankie and his right-hand man, Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris, played by Morgan Freeman, cringe at this pathetic sight.īut of course, Maggie hangs around day after day, ignoring Frankie's insults and pathetically punching that bag, until Frankie's heavyweight fires him and Frankie finally says, what the hell, he'll train the girl. She looks as if she has never boxed before. Yet Maggie shows up unannounced and unwanted at Frankie's hole-in-the-wall gym and starts trying to punch a bag. Of course, Frankie gruffly brushes her off with: "I don't train girls." After Frankie's fighter wins, Maggie waits for Frankie and begs him to train her. It seats about 6,000, and as Maggie watches from the wings, it's packed with screaming fans.Ī female boxer would have to be reasonably accomplished to get a shot on that undercard.Įastwood, as Frankie Dunn, trains the heavyweight contender. As we first see Swank, playing a boxer named Maggie Fitzgerald, she has just won her fight on the undercard of what you soon realize is a heavyweight contender's fight at the Grand Olympic in downtown Los Angeles. Maybe I've taken too many e-mail punches.īut my intelligence was sucker punched from the opening scene on. That's right: I said no mas to a movie Sports Illustrated eventually would proclaim "the greatest fight film ever." I made it through about half of "Baby" before walking out. Then again, it had generated almost no Hollywood buzz. I was surprised to find that "Baby" wasn't. That Friday night, I attempted to see another movie. But because I'm fascinated by the not-so-sweet science and had the privilege of covering Ali's last five fights, I figured it was my duty to check out Clint's ring debut eventually. I'd caught the trailer, which gave off the faint odor of just another hokey sports movie. The day it opened, I didn't rush out to see it. If "Baby" wins by knockout, I'm throwing in the towel. That's why I vow never to watch my favorite show of the year, Sunday night's Academy Awards, again if Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" wins Best Picture or Best Director or turns into this year's "Lord of the Rings" with an endless parade of acceptance speeches. I get especially infuriated if the movie pretends to capture the inside essence of something I know a little about - sports. Only a Barry Bonds media session can frustrate me more than a movie that insults my intelligence while turning into a box-office smash or - worse - an Academy Award bandwagon. Allow me to disqualify myself the way Hilary Swank's final foe would have been disqualified in "Million Problem Baby."īut understand, I'm a frustrated movie critic.
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