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Someone told me Million Dollar Baby was a great movie. It was. Sort of...as long as I don't think about it. Maybe I just never watched enough violent cartoons as a kid or something.
It is the story of Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), a past-her-prime (to pick up and master a new competitive sport anyway), youngish woman of 32 from a low-class upbringing, who decided that she was going to become a boxing champion. So she convinced a coach to train her and in time, became great at it. She was knocking out her opponents right and left -- in 4 punches, then in 3, and even a bunch in 2. Not only was she never knocked out herself, she won every fight in a matter of seconds.
That is, until the World Championship Match when an extraordinarily brutish and masculine-looking woman fought dirty and cheated, cleaning Maggie's clock after the bell rang. She fell, catching her neck against the side edge of her stool, and ended up paralyzed and on a respirator.
Coach Dunn (Clint Eastwood), a devout guilty Roman Catholic who attends daily Mass but drives his priest nuts with questions and doubts, has since fallen in love with Maggie but never says or acts on it.
When Maggie loses her leg to gangrenous bedsores, she begs Dunn to help her die. When he refuses, she bites her tongue badly enough that she nearly bleeds to death during the night. But the nurses catch it and get her tongue sewn back together, padding her mouth so she can't do it again. Nor can she talk anymore (as though she could with a tracheotomy anyway).
Eventually, after consulting with his priest and going against his word that he was committing murder, Coach Dunn murders Maggie, as she smiles and sheds a tear of gratefulness (a truly touching moment :P), by disconnecting her respirator and shooting her up with enough adrenaline to kill her several times over. He then disappears, presumably to a cabin in some remote location, and avoids prosecution.
But, yeah, other than all that...it was a great movie.
Edited on: July 13th, 2005 5:13 am
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