Most people erroneously assume that an adherence to formula is a movie’s death knell. This is a fallacy that continues to circulate thanks to the poor writing, acting and directing that usually accompanies the formula. When you think about it, every romantic comedy follows the ‘boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back’ plot line and every sports movie’s climactic event occurs during the ‘big game’. The difference between good formula and bad formula comes with the filmmakers’ attention to detail, plausibility and execution. Attaching Peter Jackson or Martin Scorsese to a project will certainly churn out a different result that tossing the script to a rookie director or the guy who did Drumline. Look no further than director/star Clint Eastwood’s latest effort, Million Dollar Baby, for a perfect example of a well-crafted film that unabashedly follows the most tried and true formulas Hollywood has to offer.

Eastwood returns to the silver screen in Million Dollar Baby to play Frankie Dunn, a wily, crusty, old-school boxing trainer whose latest protégé has just left him to sign with a newer, younger, more business savvy manager. While debating about whether or not to leave the boxing world, Dunn stumbles upon Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) training in his gym. After first resisting the idea of training a girl, Dunn listens to the sage advice of his old pal, Scrap-Iron Dupruis (Morgan Freeman) and gives Fitzgerald a chance as his student.

Million Dollar Baby is one of the rare films that its studio actually deems Academy Award-worthy. Prominently posited for success with its staggered December release in New York and LA and its wide release in January (five of the last seven Best Picture winners opened in the last two weeks of December), Warner Brothers pinned its 2004 Oscar hopes onto Million Dollar Baby. And for good reason; Million Dollar Baby almost feels like a genetically engineered Oscar hopeful. Seemingly reasoning that Academy members like tragedy, flawed individuals learning valuable lessons about themselves because of their interactions with younger people, movies based on true stories and dysfunctional family relationships, Eastwood and screenwriter Paul Haggis hyper-inflated their script with as many of these elements as they could in order to appeal to as many voters and critics as possible.

However, even with a very formulaic and somewhat contrived screenplay, Million Dollar Baby succeeds admirably until its third act and subsequent drastic plot left turn. After similarly grizzled roles in Unforgiven, In the Line of Fire, Space Cowboys and Blood Work, Eastwood has the part of the cantankerous, yet loveable veteran down to a science. No one is able to convey so much feeling and angst with a raised eyebrow or a low grumbling growl than Eastwood (a large part of the reason that Eastwood’s characters aren’t chatterboxes is because, as he rightly reasons, sometimes his piercing stare is more effective than any line of dialogue ever could be). Freeman is solid as Dupruis, but it is Swank who deserves the most praise, creating in Fitzgerald a wondrously three-dimensional character who can adeptly move from down-on-her-luck to happy with the hint of a smile.

And so, for about an hour and a half, Million Dollar Baby is an entertaining, atmospheric, if somewhat recycled look into the world of Dunn, Fitzgerald, Dupruis and the dimly lit, duct tape filled boxing gym they all call home. Then, apparently convinced that a 90 minute long movie about one man’s acceptance of changing times and his place in the world wouldn’t play for Academy voters, Eastwood and Haggis added another 40 minutes of sheer melodrama to the film. Out-of-place, over-the-top melodrama with supporting characters who suddenly turn into cartoonishly simplified creations who seem specifically designed to antagonize the audience; button pushers, if you will.

It has been argued that the dramatic shift in focus that occurs around minute 90 is merely another incident that Dunn and Fitzgerald experience in the film’s 132 minute running time; the arc of the story is consistent because it all happens to Dunn and Fitzgerald during the course of their relationship. However, the truth of the matter isn’t anywhere as neat or easily explained away as that. Adapted from F.X. Toole’s book of non-fiction stories about his seventy-plus years in the boxing world, Haggis and Eastwood took the main plot strands from two of Toole’s stories (and sub-plots from many others) and pushed, prodded and cajoled them together to create the script for Million Dollar Baby. Thus, the reason that Million Dollar Baby feels like two movies smushed into one is precisely because it is two movies that have been combined into one.

Swank’s performance is superbly and enjoyably nuanced and vindicating proof that her Academy Award for Boys Don’t Cry was not a fluke. However, in the end, Eastwood’s latest film is brought to its knees by the curious, unexpected and thoroughly devastating plot shift and tone change that occurs midway through.

chris neumer

yes, it's true: Screenwriter Paul Haggis went on to write and direct the movie Crash.