Title: Million Dollar Babby |
Release Date: 2004 |
Nationality and Language: |
Running time: 133 min |
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Distributor and Production Company: Warner Brothers, Lakeshore |
Director; Writer: Clint Eastwood; wr. F. X. Toole |
Producer: Clint Eastwood (also composer) |
Cast: |
Technical: full widescreen |
Relevance to DOASKDOTELL site: assisted suicide, right to life |
Review: Million Dollar Baby (2004, Warner Brothers/Lakeshore,
dir. Clint Eastwood, 133 min. PG-13) is being marketed in platform fashion as
an art film even though it comes from a full studio. Clint Eastwood provides
a schmaltzy music score of his own and a studied script about a female boxer.
The movie seems a bit confined in visual opportunities, a lot of it on a
boxing club, almost in dogma fashion. Eastwood plays Frankie Dunn, the
manager, and Morgan Freeman (one of my own favorite veteran actors) plays his
assistant Scrap, who narrates the story of Frankie’s mentorship of Maggie
FitzGerald (Hilary Swank). Jay Baruchel plays
Danger Barch, the welterweight sidekick who might
be “MR” but his story never goes anywhere. Margo Martindale gives a chilling
performance as Maggie’s conniving hillbilly mother from the “Show Me State.”
Now, after Maggie finally loses a fight in Mystic River (2003: Warner
Brothers, Village Roadshow, R), directed (with
music composed by) Clint Eastwood, is a “big” art film from big-time studios
bringing together three troubled middle-aged men after the disappearance of
the daughter of one of them, twenty-five years after an earlier incident
where one of the men was sexually abused as a boy. The name of the movie
refers to a river that runs at a right angle to the Firefox
(1982, Warner Bros., dir. Clint Eastwood) was a major Cold War thriller. Hero
Mitchell Gant (Clint Eastwood) comes out of retirement and goes into the The Unforgiven (1992, Warner Bors., dir. Clint Eastwood) has a similar one last assignment plot, here as a western. Eastwood plays retired gunslinger Bill Munny, who takes up a bounty put up by prostitutes (in Big Whiskey, WY) after one of them is cut up (the confrontation early in the film is quite shocking). Morgan Freeman plays his partner Ned, and Gene Hackman is the inept sheriff. Hang
‘em High (1968, Play Misty for Me (1971, Universal/Malposo, dir. Clint Eastwood, story by Jo Heims) was an early “Fatal Attraction.” A young disc jockey is stalked by a female fan who become jealous when he has another girl. Clint Eastwood plays Dave Garver, Jessica Walter is the obsessed fan Evelyn, and Donna Mills is Tobie, the other girl. It gets violent. The
Bridges of Madison County (1995, Warner Bros., dir. Clint Eastwood, 135
min, PG-13) The children of Francesca Johnson find their mother’s diary and
learn of a three day romance with a National Geographic photographer Robert
Kincaid (Clint Eastwood) while their dad was away. The county is south of Gone
Baby Gone (2007, Miramax / Ladd, dir. Ben Affleck, novel by Dennis Lahane, wr. Ben Affleck and
Aaron Stockard). Two private detectives (brother
Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) taken on an apparent kidnapping case in
the Dorcester area of Changeling (2008, Universal / Relativity, dir. Clint Eastwood, 140 min, R). This is a probing period piece in 1920s LA, where the LAPD tries to conceal a mistake from a single mom (Angelina Jolie) with a missing child. Blogger. Gran Torino (2008, Warner Bros. / Village Roadshow, dir. Clint Eastwood, 116 min, PG-13). A widower tames a Hmong teen under his wing after the teen tries to steal his car as part of a gang initiation. Blogger.
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