Product Details

• Actors: Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Jay Baruchel, Mike Colter
• Directors: Clint Eastwood
• Writers: Paul Haggis, F.X. Toole
• Producers: Clint Eastwood, Albert S. Ruddy, Gary Lucchesi, Paul Haggis, Robert Lorenz
• Format: NTSC
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: April 18, 2006
• Run Time: 132 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (531 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0009OGEIE
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #220,449 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Clint Eastwood's 25th film as a director, Million Dollar Baby stands proudly with Unforgiven and Mystic River as the masterwork of a great American filmmaker. In an age of bloated spectacle and computer-generated effects extravaganzas, Eastwood turns an elegant screenplay by Paul Haggis (adapted from the book Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner by F.X. Toole, a pseudonym for veteran boxing manager Jerry Boyd) into a simple, humanitarian example of classical filmmaking, as deeply felt in its heart-wrenching emotions as it is streamlined in its character-driven storytelling. In the course of developing powerful bonds between "white-trash" Missouri waitress and aspiring boxer Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), her grizzled, reluctant trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), and Frankie's best friend and training-gym partner Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris (Morgan Freeman), 74-year-old Eastwood mines gold from each and every character, resulting in stellar work from his well-chosen cast. Containing deep reserves of love, loss, and the universal desire for something better in hard-scrabble lives, Million Dollar Baby emerged, quietly and gracefully, as one of the most acclaimed films of 2004, released just in time to earn an abundance of year-end accolades, all of them well-deserved. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

Much of Clint Eastwood's evocative and poetic boxing movie is set in the Hit Pit, a moldy, sweat-stained downtown Los Angeles gym in which crusty veterans train a few serious fighters and many hapless punks. Scrap (Morgan Freeman), an ex-fighter with one functioning eye, works at the gym and exchanges affectionately nasty remarks with the owner, one Frankie Dunn (Eastwood). Against his better judgment, Frankie agrees to take on a tough country woman, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), who, not entirely to our surprise, rapidly becomes the hottest fighter in the sordid but lucrative world of women's boxing. The story, adapted by Paul Haggis from F. X. Toole's collection, "Rope Burns," is borderline trite, but the movie has the sweet melancholy of a great jazz piece. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

320 of 373 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, believable performances fuel this moving film, December 25, 2004

By 

Jonathan Appleseed - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Hillary Swank (Margaret Fitzgerald), who proved her athleticism in her first major role, The Next Karate Kid, demonstrated it again, pummeling a heavy bag with a power left on which I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end. She's very convincing in this movie - both as a young woman from humble beginnings who wants to make a better life for herself, and as a boxer. In Million Dollar Baby, she returns to the visceral emotional range that left us so deeply moved in Boy's Don't Cry.

Clint Eastwood (Frankie Dunn), who has proved himself repeatedly, has perhaps turned in the best performance of his career. At times irascible, intellectual, mournful, instructive, reflective, passionate - in every manifestation, he reaches you. He was brilliant.

And Morgan Freeman is, well, Morgan Freeman. As the narrator of the story, and an actor within it, he lends a soft-spoken touch that ameliorates some of the film's darker elements. He also lent the film a certain amount of boxing sagacity, as he spoke in non-technical and sometimes quasi-technical terms of the basics of boxing.

This film ain't no Rocky. It has an intelligence and compassion that Rocky (and virtually every boxing film ever made, save perhaps Raging Bull) couldn't think to have. Beyond that, it actually has better fight sequences. More often than in most boxing films - certainly the very poor choreography of the Rocky fight sequences - the punches looked and felt real, or as real as "fake" can make them.

Margaret introduces herself to Frankie after a fight and asks him to train her. He turns her down flat, saying that he doesn't train girls. Given her pluckiness, she appears at his gym the next day, punching a heavy bag with all of the skill, style and fluidity of Pinocchio. Finally he agrees to train her ("finally" takes a while, and watching it come to fruition, the subtle changes in Eastwood's character, is a real treat to watch), and soon she is ready for her first fight.

Here's the only similarity to Rocky: she turns out to be a natural, with a wicked left hook and overhand right (at least that I could see) and is knocking out all of her opponents in the first round. Some might think that this is, perhaps, a bit much. However, in the sport of women's boxing, such a thing isn't uncommon. PLEASE don't think that I'm saying women are not good boxers or don't have the same abilities that men do. It's simply that the increasing popularity of the sport hasn't quite yet led to the kind of talent that exists in men's boxing (although, frankly, talent on that side isn't exactly at it's apex). Her superiority over lesser opponents isn't unheard of.

There's so much more I want to say about this film, because from this point forward it moved from being one of the best films of the year - purely on the strength of the writing, and the performances of Swank and Eastwood in particular - to one of the best films I've seen in several years. I'm so grateful that reviewers didn't give away the ending. I'll just say that the ending is layered with surprises, and that it's been a very, very long time that I haven't seen a single cell phone being used (how annoying is that, even with all of the polite requests and warnings?), and also seen so many in the theater remain in their seats long after the movie ended.

It's a brilliant, brilliant film, the kind that makes me want to go back and change the number of stars I've given most movies that I've reviewed, simply so that this 5 star review means more. I recently gave Sideways, Closer, and Finding Neverland 5 stars, and while they are all very, very worthy films - I'd like to give this one six.

139 of 176 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Stars: Maggie May, January 9, 2005

By 

MICHAEL ACUNA (Southern California United States) - See all my reviews
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Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) is "the best cut man in the business' intones the narrator, Morgan Freeman in "Million Dollar Baby." Frankie can clean up a cut in seconds so that a fighter can get back in the ring and at the very least finish the fight and at best, win.
Yet Frankie can't heal the emotional wounds of his life even though he spends 365 days a year at Mass and writes letters to his estranged daughter every day asking for, I assume forgiveness. But the letters come back marked "Return to Sender" and Frankie files them away in a box and his life returns to the needs and wants of his Gym for Boxers and to his best friend, confidant and former fighter, Eddie Dupris (Morgan Freeman).
And then Maggie Fitzgerald walks into Frankie's Gym, pays her Gym dues for six months and asks Frankie every day to train her. And everyday he turns her down: "you're too old, too skinny...and you're a girl," he says.
Until one day she wears him down, he concedes to her wishes and there begins a Cinderella story of fights won, money earned and glory attained. And then it's all taken away.
Eastwood has made some great, even unforgettable films: "The Unforgiven, "Bird" to name a couple. But he has done nothing to match the guts, emotional power and poignancy of "Million Dollar Baby." And Hillary Swank, pretty much floundering after "Boys Don't Cry," is as sunny, thoughtful and real as she's ever been.
There is a scene towards the end of "MDB" between Frankie and Maggie in which Frankie explains the meaning of a Gaelic nickname that he has given Maggie that grabs at your heart and is so beautifully realized that you are galvanized with emotion. It's so real and so true to the tone of the film that you can't help but gasp.
"Million Dollar Baby" is Eastwood at his most emotionally aware and naked. This film comes from the deepest areas of Eastwood's heart and soul. It is a brave and honest film from one of the best purveyors of our Hopes and Dreams.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW!, March 21, 2005

By 

flyguy - See all my reviews

An instant classic. This was not only the best picture of the year, but could be the most emotional film I have ever seen. Freeman's narration performance was even more moving than in Shawshank. If you think you know where Clint is going with this film, you don't. One of my top 10 favorites of all time. I loved this movie, and I hope you do too.