Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by tunenut (A) on January 29, 2005 at 14:42:46

In Reply to: I liked Million Dollar Baby... posted by Corbu on January 28, 2005 at 18:40:41:

Yes it was a good movie. And the actors did a great job. But I had a big huge problem with it.

Minor spoiler follows, do not read on if you haven't seen it.

After the big twist about 2/3 through the movie, it became dull IMO. What was supposed to be moving struck me as manipulative and I don't like manipulative pushing of emotional buttons. This twist was so far off the deep end, yes it could've occurred but it's such a stretch. I didn't make it through the transition. I felt like this was a rather awkward patchwork of two separate movies. Had the 2nd one been the whole movie, I wouldn't have been interested in seeing it.

Up to then, I was with it as a good, not great, character study, set in the interesting world of women's boxing. I don't understand all the praise that has been heaped on this, there were many movies I liked better, especially Sideways, which struck me as a great character study. Perhaps it is heresy, but I liked In Good Company better than Million Dollar Baby, enjoyed it thoroughly all the way through, although it obviously has much more modest goals. But sure, Hillary Swank and Clint Eastwood both did very good jobs at bringing their characters to life.