The devil and her minions.
Being my first review, I'd really like to take my time and go through all the angles and perspectives and show you what I'm capable of here, but I just can't. I can't, because I'm reviewing Million Dollar Baby, and this is a movie with basically one problem that ruins the proceedings time and time again. Million Dollar Baby is the hammer, and you are the nail. Pop this Baby in the DVD player, and prepare to be beaten over the head.
I've heard it said that Clint Eastwood can do no wrong, and it must be true, because it's the only explanation for why he gets away with stuff that gets "lesser" movies laughed out of the theaters. Why does Clint not only get away with these cliches, but get handed little gold statues for them? The foremost of these is the worst kind of juvenile storytelling: There are the main characters, and then there is everybody else. Only the main characters are people; everybody else are caricatures.
"How should I play this scene, Clint?"
"Just think of the worst priest ever. Then kill his dog and kick him in the nuts. That'll do."
Million Dollar Baby, however, not content to be just any other movie, takes this a step further. Not only are everybody else caricatures, but everyone about whom we're not supposed to particularly care and whose performances are not slated for Nomination are THE WORST IN THE WORLD. Every one of them, they're all the worst in the world at something. Her mother is the worst mother in the world. Her family is the worst family in the world. Danger, the aspiring boxer at Frankie's club, is the worst boxer in the world. The bully, who picks on him, is the worst bully in the world. Frankie's priest is the worst priest in the world. Maggie's key opponent in the film is the worst sport in the world. (Don't read the rest of this paragraph if you haven't seen the movie and don't want it SPOILED for you.) Her doctors are the worst doctors in the world. How long did it take her to get bedsores and lose a leg? Don't they shift you around to avoid that kind of stuff? I know it happens, but this seemed ridiculous. Her nurses are the worst nurses in the world. Did no one hear the beeping when he disconnected her machinery? All the way, straight up and down the cast, everyone but the three main characters is nothing but the personification of or trigger for some terribleness that must affront our heroes. This is the best movie of the year?
"I'm here to drag the bar down and make her mom seem like an actual person."
That's not all, of course, but I really don't have the energy to detail all the tedious ways in which this movie just beats you over the head relentlessly. It was bad enough while watching, I don't want to relive it again. So, I'll make the rest of these points the easy way: With screenshots.
"What about my welfare?"
I'd worry about your third dimension before I started worrying about your welfare, honey.
"What's that say?"
"It says, 'Chant like you're in Rocky IV.'"
She takes leftover food home from work and saves all her tips in a big change jar, which she then uses to buy things, still as loose change and big rolls of coins. No explanation is given for why the bank won't let her exchange her coins, or how much shipping she pays on all those coins when she sends money to her mother.
"Why do I do what I do? What has caused me to be a bully? What lurks deep inside my heart that makes me want to belittle others in order to make myself feel better? From what pain do I suffer?""Stop asking so many questions. You're here to complete Morgan's character arc. Now shut up and take the punch like a girl who's never been in a boxing ring before so we can all go home and work on our speeches."
He has a daughter he writes letters to who just won't write back. He also has just one week until retirement, a loose-cannon partner, a captain who doesn't appreciate his methods, and he doesn't need this shit.
Really, that's it. I can't go on any further. Million Dollar Baby is just one continuous assault on your intelligence. It's a heavy-handed pounding that beats you into submission until you can't protest the beating anymore. (Have I worked the "this movie pounds on you and pounds on you until you can't take it anymore" angle enough? I'm just trying to give a taste of what watching the movie is like.) There is one way, however, in which it is smart. It constructed for itself a complete non sequitur of a "controversial" ending, so it has a ready-made rationalization for why anyone could possibly not appreciate it.
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