Million Dollar Baby

Multi-Oscar winning flick left conservative pundits frothing and hurling baseless allegations at the ever-gracious Eastwood (directing his 25th film). As always, you should make up your own minds. Old school boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) manages a rundown LA gym, aided by his best friend, former boxer Scrap (Freeman, who also narrates). Abrasive Frankie, long estranged from his own daughter, is very reluctant to have anything to do with 30-ish, uneducated waitress Maggie (Swank), whom he deems too old to train. But Maggie fiercely bets that boxing can change her life--and it does, although not in a way anyone could have expected. Downer ending doesn't negate the heart-tugging vulnerability of its characters or its emotional power. A knockout. Based upon "Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner" by Jerry Boyd, under the pen name F.X. Toole.