Knock Out

Million Dollar Baby

I'm not sure where to start the praise.

Morgan Freeman - Well thank goodness you finally won a freaking Oscar. I think you should have won for Shawshank Redemption and Driving Miss Daisy too. Freeman is one of my favorite actors. He brings his own strong but yielding style to the film as a former boxer, Eastwood's friendly antagonistic sidekick and omnipresent narrator. He is the centered paternal balance to other character's spinning out of control.

Hillary Swank - Another well deserved Oscar. You have to hand it to her, she picks the hardest roles imaginable and consistently comes out on top. Between this film, Boys Dont Cry and The Gift she's taken a lot of punches. She burns up the screen again as the from-rags girl that fights her way into life and just keeps right on fighting. Swank is hard to top when it comes to being able to get into head of someone that struggles with life on so many fronts.


Clint Eastwood - Frankly, he too deserved an Oscar for his acting, although if I had to give him just one it would have been for his directing. The directing is brilliant in this film; emotionally charged moments are downplayed from normal levels to let your immagination take over rather than being overwhelmed by heavy-handed on screen production.

The surface story is of course really a metaphor for struggling through life; how do we define who is our real family, do we hold onto people for selfish reasons when we should let them go, what constitutes a loss, when do we know when we've won at life, how do we know when we've made the right choice?

While the film itself is heavy there are some moments that are just priceless and funny; the philospohical discussion between Freeman and Eastwood about 'morning socks' versus 'sleeping socks' was such absurd contrast to the preceeding scene that I just rolled on the floor laughing. I let out a 'yes!' when Freeman throws a KO in his 110th fight, exiting the ring with one glove and a 'get a job, punk' line to an opponent 40 years his junior.

Filming is great -- I loved the through the ropes view of Swank taking her KO shots as opponent after opponent go flying through the air to hug the mat and hear the 10 count.

Editing is great -- the initial part of the movie flows from scene to scene in superimposed and fade style.

Two other aspects of the film were very impressive; makeup - my god, Swank looked fantasically beaten up in so many scenes; lighting - long corridors lighted only at the end give the feeling of a long path ahead, excellent night time scenes with partially exposed faces or minimal backlighting as the only light source.

This is an inspirational story but you will have to do some thinking before you can get there.

10/10 Must see.