Million Dollar Baby

Title: Million Dollar Baby
Year: 2004
Director: Clint Eastwood
Writer: Paul Haggis, based on stories by F.X. Toole
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman
Music: Clint Eastwood
Distinctions: Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Swank) and Best Supporting Actor (Freeman); Oscar nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Eastwood) and Best Editing; currently #145 on IMDb's Top 250
Synopsis: a female boxer gets a grouchy trainer
Length: 132 minutes
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Subjective Rating: 4/10 (Eh).
Objective Rating: 6/10 (points off for concept, pacing, music and subjective rating) c. 2.9/4 (Good).

The first couple acts are okay - very well performed and shot, sometimes funny, but nothing exceptional. The last 45 minutes or so, which I gather are supposed to be the emotional weight of the film, are boring. It's an excellent story, and I can see how the story it's based on could be very powerful, but they just completely failed to make me feel any connection to it. Possibly because it feels like a separate story from the first half of the movie (that seems to be a recurring theme from movies written by Paul Haggis...). Or maybe because the music contributes nothing.  Idunno. And then there's no resolution for Eastwood's character (the main character), which is extremely frustrating.