Million Dollar Baby

To win a best picture Oscar doesn't always take the level of quality it used to in Tinseltown's hayday - take Titanic, of course, or Chicago and A Beautiful Mind more recently as examples of perfectly average films making it big! Million Dollar Baby, unfortunately, can also be added to the list. I missed it on it's original release, favouring other awards contenders on instinct - and I think I was right. Given a second lease of life on the big screen due to it's success I gave it a chance on a free afternoon. It feels very much like an Eastwood film right from the credits - no nonsense, clean images and edits and a simple, slightly sentimental style; it seemed like it was going to be a winner: Clint was on form, as was Morgan Freeman in the early scenes, and Hilary Swank was as natural and charming as usual in a role that fit her like a (ahem) glove. But somewhere in the middle it all went wrong... Freeman's voice-over became trite and most annoying in places, the scmaltz factor got cranked up to 11, and by the time the devastating final reel arrived I just didn't believe in it enough to get caught in the emotion, despite some beautifully restrained performances in key scenes. Ultimately it was the dialogue and (I hate to say it Clint) the directing that let it down. My biggest memory of it all were the terribly orchestrated crowd scenes, complete with embarrassingly choreographed chanting - and that's not a good sign. Like I say, not awful, just decidedly average for all the hype. 7/10 Kx