Million Dollar Baby (2004) Lakeshore Entertainment/Warner Bros./Malpaso 📢 Director: Clint Eastwood 💰 Producer: Clint Eastwood, Albert S. Ruddy, Tom Rosenberg, Paul Haggis 👫 Cast: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman. 🏆 Awards ceremony: -77th Academy Awards: February 27, 2005. Kodak Theatre, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. 🎭 Other films nominated for Best Picture this year: -The Aviator. -Finding Neverland. -Ray. -Sideways. 📕 Plot summary: Maggie Fitzgerald (HILARY SWANK) is a wannabe boxer who persists in her efforts to get aging, retired trainer Frankie Dunn (CLINT EASTWOOD) to train her but he continually resists wanting to do so, until he finally relents and reluctantly agrees. Over a period of time Maggie, trains hard and eventually has a few fights until she gets a shot at the world title. During the match she suffers a career-ending accident which leaves her paralyzed for life. Racked with guilt, Frankie is then faced with a moral dilemma when Maggie asks for him for one last favour. 💥 Standout scene(s): -The title bout when Maggie has her accident. -Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman having a discussion about socks. -The scene where Maggie's family come to (finally) visit her in hospital, I so wanted Clint to go into proper Dirty Harry mode and take the lot of them out with his Magnum .44! -Also, there is a scene where Clint is driving in the car at night with Hilary and the lighting is so spot-on effective. 🔑 Facts: -The 77th Academy Awards. -Nominated for 7 Academy Awards, it won 4: Best Picture, Director, Best Actress (Hilary Swank), Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman). -This was the second Best Picture appearance for Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven). -This was the third Best Picture appearance for Morgan Freeman (Driving Miss Daisy, Unforgiven). -Michael Peña has a small role in this film as one of the gym guys, and would return to feature in the next year's Best Picture, Crash. 🙂 Personal opinion: Really good drama and a movie of two halves: the first half is energetic and flows really well; the back half is more slow and somber. One thing I noticed very early into the film was the smooth and accomplished directing from the career veteran Clint Eastwood. As an actor I did grin a little to see the gravel-voiced Clint at the age of 74 still trying to pull those facial expressions that made him so believably tough back in the 1970s but I'm not sure it works on him in 2004? His performance did earn him a rare Academy Award nomination, and to be fair he certainly did stand out. A solid film, boasting some top class actors, especially Hilary Swank who took home the Best Actress Oscar and rightly so. Compared to Sylvester Stallone's ROCKY (1976), this is a worthy counterpart, but a very different film about boxing. For one, it has quite an unexpected conclusion, and you can really tell the difference in production quality as well. Deserved every one of the four Oscars it bagged. Definitely recommended. Did it deserve the Oscar? ✅YES. 7½/10

Review date: 26 May 2025