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WARNING: THIS PLOT CRITIQUE CONTAINS SPOILERS. Please consider skipping to the video section if you are one of those rare movie fans that hasn't had the twist in this film revealed to you.
Much ado was made about the big twist ninety minutes into Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood's Oscar winning Best Picture of 2004. Critics and the media stumbled all over themselves trying not to reveal the crippling and eventual death of one of its main characters, female boxer Maggie Fitzgerald (Oscar winner Hilary Swank). A noble cause, since the film relies on this sucker punch, delivered much like it was to Maggie, bluntly and with her back turned. But to my mind, the twist made the movie into something it wasn't prepared to spend the time to support, especially after the moody, unfolding brilliance of the first two-thirds. Plus, lost in the fog is that, for my money, the movie is really about Eastwood's character Frankie Dunn. He is by far, the more interesting and more tortured soul. A grizzled trainer whose Hit Pit Boxing Gym is barely scraping by, Frankie is cautious and emotionally hemmed-in, tight as his close-cropped hair. Frankie's slow descent started years earlier, after failing to save fighter Eddie Dupris (Oscar winner Morgan Freeman) by throwing in the towel during a boxing match; Eddie lost an eye as a result. Whether out of guilt or as a reminder of his sin, Frankie employs Eddie at the Hit Pit, where he works and sleeps. The scenes between Frankie and Eddie are wonderful. Two old pros slowly chewing on dialogue that is, at the same time, meaningful and throwaway. Their conversation about socks is about as sublime as any such conversation will ever get. Frankie has a daughter, but she's never seen by us or Frankie. Estranged for reasons that are never explained, Frankie sends her letters constantly, all of which are returned unopened. So we meet Frankie as a deeply flawed person, hiding in the dark corners of a dark and crusty gym, so life doesn't find him and his past doesn't completely overtake him.
Frankie is training a young black fighter who seems destined for a shot at the title. But Frankie believes the boxer is two fights away from taking on the champ. In Frankie's mind, every boxer is two fights away. That way he doesn't have to risk anything. He never has to put himself on the line, or be responsible for someone else putting themselves on the line. So after the boxer dumps Frankie and finds a new manager (and eventually wins the title), in walks Maggie. Barely making a living as a waitress (where she steals the customer's leftovers), Maggie lives for boxing and knows she can box, if trained by someone like Frankie. At first, he is loathe to take on a new fighter, especially a girl. But he relents, possibly seeing a chance at the kind of father/daughter relationship he never had with his real offspring.
Boxing movies tend to travel the same dramatic route, with the throaty old trainer barking orders and the fighter spending all night pounding the bag. But ironically, Eastwood's lazy style energizes the genre. Boxing has always seemed a sad sport, with broken men training in dilapidated gyms for the glory of getting their face pounded. This fits perfectly with Eastwood's elegiac style. And it works magnificently. The atmosphere is thick and dark and something to behold. Then comes the twist. Maggie, fighting for a million dollar purse, is sucker punched after the bell rings by opponent Billie The Blue Bear (Lucia Rijker). Suffering a broken spine, she will never fight, or walk, again. The film has been building towards this moment, a 90-minute misdirect that turns the film on its ear. But I never felt the movie had the time to explore the new dynamic effectively enough. Eastwood's dirge-like direction makes the final third seem important and sad, but he's telling me, not showing me. It doesn't help when Maggie's buffoonish family shows up. Granted, there may really be people like Maggie's mother and brother, but these people wandered in from another movie. Plus, Frankie's penultimate act never seems plausible. And if it is plausible, may your loved one never stay at that facility. The advantage of Maggie's fate is that it makes Frankie's final fate unknowable, yet heartbreakingly tragic. Yes, both Maggie and Frankie are tortured souls, but Maggie's journey is over when the film is over. Frankie's fate is far worse; he must spend the rest of his life knowing what he's done. After years of being too cautious and too scared, he finally emerged from the shadows and took a chance. And it destroyed him.
The Video: How Does The Disc Look?
A knockout. That's all you can say about this fantastic 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer. The film features a dark, moody, desaturated palette, a challenge for any transfer. But the blacks here are dense, with a richness that is very satisfying. Shadow detail and contrast are great. There are shots where all you see is Clint Eastwood's face surrounded by a sea of black. Not only is the black rich and solid, but his face is beautifully detailed and illuminated. The overall picture is shows no softness or lack of crispness. I found no print flaws and no edge halos. While it's not eye-popping enough to show off to your friends (save that for some random Superbit DVD), it's a great transfer that enhances the effectiveness of the movie.
The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?
I listened to some of the DVD's Dolby Digital 5.1 track using headphones. It was an interesting experience. The sound design is very delicate. Little bits of ambiance, like a cell phone ringing or a car passing by, are used to fill emotional silences. These sounds are like crystal. The environment of the Hit Pit boxing gym has a very slight echo, with gives the place some depth. The sides supported whatever was going on up front and the surrounds didn't do much. The score, a spare, tinkling affair, sounds warm and natural. There wasn't much LFE activity, but what was there had the right amount of oomph, without showing off. Dialogue is very clean, with Eastwood and Freeman's growls sounding deep and resonant. It's not a show-off effort. It's very appropriate to the material.
There is also a French 5.1 track and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There?
For a 3-disc deluxe edition, this set is mighty thin on good supplements. In fact, there's so little substantive value or length in the extras, that Warner probably could have put everything on one disc, with plenty of room left for the great transfer.
Disc One contains only the film's theatrical trailer, leaving all the goodies on Disc Two. Born to Fight is a 19-minute exploration of boxing and why people are driven to do it. This is bloated, boring material. It's one of those self-important pieces where the opening graphics are so stately and artsy that they last 45 seconds. So almost a minute's gone before anyone actually says anything. And when they do, it's just classy EPK talk. Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, and Lucia Rijker, who played Maggie's opponent in her final fight, all sound off. Rijker is the only one of interest although Eastwood nicely explains some of the inner dynamics of the characters. Otherwise, the piece is padded out with training b-roll and movie clips that are too long. It's high on style, thin on enlightenment. The video is soft focus and very clean.
The Producers' Round 15 accomplishes what Born to Fight could not. It's interesting. Producer Albert Ruddy, a classic old-timer starts his comments with the self-congratulatory name-drop of ìa very good friend of mine, named Angelica Huston . . .î As it turns out, Huston was calling to recommend that he read the script for Million Dollar Baby. Ruddy goes on to explain how he obtained the rights to F.X. Toole's whole series of boxing novellas. When Ruddy called screenwriter Paul Haggis to write the script, it turns out that Haggis also had his eye on the Toole novellas. Producer Tom Rosenberg recounts oft-told, but still enjoyable stories about how fast and confidently Eastwood works as a director. Amazingly, during the entire shoot there was not one minute of overtime. Had Warner combined Born to Fight with this supplement, it may have resulted in a nice documentary.
Disc Two finishes with James Lipton Take on Three. Taped after the film's quadruple Oscar win (Picture, Director, Actress and Supporting Actor), Lipton is his usual cartoonishly pompous self. And he doesn't even earn his pomposity, starting his remarks with the painfully obvious question, ìWhen you were shooting Million Dollar Baby, did it ever occur to youî that the film would win four Oscars? The stately and airless room they shot in furthers the distancing sophistication of the piece. What saves it is that Eastwood, Swank, and Freeman are professionals and Oscar winners and interesting.
The Deluxe Edition comes with a third disc, which contains the film's soundtrack. For years, Eastwood has used Lenny Niehaus to score his movies. Then slowly, Eastwood began to butt in on Niehaus' territory. First, Eastwood took a co-composer credit on Space Cowboys. Then he nudged out Niehaus altogether on Mystic River. On Million Dollar Baby, Clint takes credit again, with Niehaus getting an orchestrations credit. Here, we've got about 35 minutes of sparse material that is pleasant to listen to, but you'd never listen to it more than once. Fidelity is, not surprisingly, excellent. It's one of those supplements that looks impressive on the back of the DVD box, but in reality, how often would you listen to it?
Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?
There are no DVD-ROM features on this DVD.
Final Thoughts
With the film's big surprise no longer surprising, Million Dollar Baby, the Oscar winning best picture of 2004, must now live and die by its craft alone. And Eastwood continues his mastery of minimalist filmmaking with a story that amazes for the first ninety minutes, then teeters for the remainder. Still, no one makes ëem like Eastwood. And regrettably, after he is gone Hollywood bean counters will be loathe to pass the torch. The transfer is outstanding, but the extras are a flat-out disappointment.
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