Million Dollar Baby

Warning: this review contains spoilers.

Note: the screenshots featured here are taken from the player's downscaled standard definition output and should not be considered in any way representative of the actual quality of the transfer.

"I don't train girls," rasps elderly boxing coach Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) to eager-faced Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), a poorly-paid waitress whose one passion in life is boxing. Of course, if that was the end of it, Million Dollar Baby would be an incredibly short movie, so it comes as no surprise that, having lost his job managing heavyweight champion 'Big' Willie Little (Mike Colter), Frankie relucantly takes Maggie on and develops a strong bond with her as she gradually climbs the rungs of the boxing ladder... Until, that is, an accident in the ring results in tragedy.

As a director, Clint Eastwood's career has been wildly uneven. As an actor, he remains an engaging screen presence, but all too often his films suffer from pacing problems and a general sense of inertia. Both of these issues are apparent in Million Dollar Baby to some extent - it's over two hours long and simply doesn't possess the scope to justify its running time - but the greatest offender is Paul Haggis' script. Adapted from Rope Burns, a collection of short stories written by former boxing manager Jerry Boyd (under the pseudonym of F.X. O'Toole), it serves up every cliché under the sun, from Eastwood's gruff manager who, deep down, has a heart of gold, to Morgan Freeman's worldly wise narration, which serves as a framing device for the entire film. There's a sort of inevitability to everything: just as we know Frankie will eventually relent and agree to coach Maggie, we know that Maggie is headed for disaster, and, by around the midway point, the ending is not in any doubt. Equally, the father-daughter relationship that develops between Frankie and Maggie, along with Frankie's estrangement from his real daughter, is as old as the hills and would seem like a joke were it not played with such seriousness.


Saving what would otherwise have been a mawkish and by the numbers "journey of personal discovery" are the performances of the leads. The trio of Eastwood, Swank and Freeman work wonders, and it's nice to see Eastwood playing a character that believably fits his own age (remember his 70-year-old chick magnet in True Crime?). For all the script's problems with predictability, the events are played out with enough conviction that they can, to some extent, be forgiven, and at times it does manage to be both emotionally rousing and devastating. It's a shame the film has to be as long as it is, since a tighter running time might have given it the sense of urgency that it lacks but sorely needs.

It's easy to see why Million Dollar Baby took home four Oscars at the 2004 Academy Awards. Without wanting to sound too glib, the very nature of the film's plot is the sort that tends to go down well at awards ceremonies, and the Best Supporting Actor and Best Leading Actress awards for Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank, respectively, are at least deserved. To use an old cliché, however, I tend to feel that the film is somewhat overrated, and while far from a disaster, it simply didn't wow me in the way in which it did for many critics.


HD-DVD Presentation

As is only natural with a new home video format, the technical qualities have an unfortunate habit of, for many people, overshadowing the actual films themselves (come on, you know you skipped past the analysis above and came straight to this section). With HD-DVD having emerged as the current heavyweight champion thanks to the less than stellar transfers for the initial batch of Blu-Ray releases, these first-generation releases are effectively setting a benchmark against which all future titles will be measured. That's not to say that future releases will necessarily look better, but it does mean that, as with DVD, it will take some time before we can be sure of precisely what the format is capable of. As such, the Video and Audio scores are subject to change at any time as I get more of a flavour of what the format is capable of. Additionally, please note that I am scoring these categories relative to other high definition content. In other words, a 9/10 DVD transfer is not better than an 8/10 HD-DVD transfer.

Presented in 1080p in its original aspect ratio of 2.40:1 (well, actually 2.39:1, but who's counting?), Million Dollar Baby certainly does the format proud and should silence the hecklers who are claiming that the difference between strandard definition and high definition isn't a big deal. This title looked pretty good by standard definition standards, but on HD-DVD it looks infinitely superior. The most noticeable change is the detail. Quite simply, everything is sharper and more three-dimensional, and the smudged outlines that we have put up with for so many years on DVD are completely gone. As a film with deliberately pronounced contrasts, the greyscale is somewhat more limited than normal, but this is representative of Clint Eastwood and cinematographer Tom Stern's intentions. (In any event, the SD-DVD was exactly the same.) Meanwhile, the encoding on this 30 GB dual layer disc is of a high standard, and I didn't spot any compression artefacts.


There are a couple of caveats, however - namely, some noise reduction, which is visible on some panning shots as it slightly smudges details (check out the walls and floor during the track into the gym at the start of Chapter 3), as well as some high contrast edge enhancement. Now, it is entirely possible that these (relatively minor) problems are the result of the actual encoding process, but another possibility is that these issues were already present in the master itself. In recent years, I've noticed edge enhancement and noise reduction even in films projected theatrically - the result of tinkering around on a computer before the prints themselves were created (The Machinist and Flightplan both spring to mind), so it may be that Million Dollar Baby always looked like this, even at the cinema. Certainly, the Warner HD-DVD trailer included on this disc shows plenty of material from other films that preserves the grain structure and features no visible edge enhancement, so until I've seen a wider selection of titles I won't be able to say for sure.

Suffice it to say, Million Dollar Baby looks very, very good on HD-DVD and will blow away anyone who thought the standard definition variant looked decent. It may not be the most obvious demo material, but it looks solid and gets the format off to an excellent start.


The audio tracks provided are both Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1, in English and in a Quebecois French dub. Obviously, I listened to the former, and was very impressed by what I heard. I don't have a Dolby Digital-Plus compatible audio decoder, so my Toshiba HD-A1 player output the audio as a DTS stream. Obviously, in an ideal world I would have been listening to it in its original Dolby Digital-Plus format, but for the purposes of this review, I'll simply say that, to my ears, it sounded excellent. As with the transfer, Million Dollar Baby is not a title that shows off all the latest bells and whistle, since it is a predominantly dialogue-oriented film with the rear channels only really kicking in to augment the crowd noise during the various boxing scenes. Anyway, everything sounds crystal clear and, in the occasional moments of surround sound action, the soundscape opens up and sounds impressively wide. You probably wouldn't pick this film to demo your new audio setup, but, for the purposes of simply watching the film, it's more than adequate.

Optional English, English for the hearing impaired, French and Spanish subtitles are provided. Unfortunately, while clear, legible and accurate, they are somewhat over-sized and partially cover the black letterboxing at the top and bottom of the screen - not very good for viewers with projection displays who wish to mask unused parts of the frame for 2.40:1 titles.


Extras

The extras on this HD-DVD release are identical to those of the standard definition version, and are, accordingly, presented in 480i.

James Lipton Takes on Three is a 25-minute piece in which the aforementioned Mr. Lipton interviews Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman. Obviously shot in the wake of the film's victory at the Oscars (Swank brings her statue along as proof), it is an understated and fairly informal chat that covers a wide variety of different subjects regarding the film and boxing in general. Commendably intelligent in its execution, this is a breath of fresh air compared to the EPK fluff I was expecting.

Born to Fight is a 19-minute featurette with a more traditional "documentary" structure. The subject of this piece is boxing in the broader sense, and comments are heard from a number of the main players, including real-life boxer Lucia Rijker, who played the part of Billie 'The Blue Bear' in the film and also served as Hilary Swank's coach. As someone who doesn't have any particular interest in the sport of boxing itself, this featurette was of less interest than the James Lipton interview, but that is in no way a condemnation of the piece as a whole.

The Producers: Round 15 runs for 13 minutes and features producers Albert S. Ruddy and Tom Rosenberg, along with writer Paul Haggis, who discuss the origins of the script, including the project's early days as a project to be directed by Anjelica Huston. Nothing particularly groundbreaking is revealed here, but it is an interesting enough look at the process of getting a project from script to screen.

Finally, the theatrical trailer is also included. It would have been nice if this had been provided in full 1080p resolution, but unfortunately, like the rest of the extras, it is 480i only.


Overall

Million Dollar Baby may seem like an unusual choice for a launch title for HD-DVD, but despite its rather low-key audio-visual attributes, it gets the format off to a good start with a transfer that, simply put, blows away anything ever available in standard definition. Although the film is a rather clichéd affair, it is nonetheless a compelling and at times emotionally affecting story, making this more than just a disc to bring out to impress friends who want to see if high definition is really all that. It's a shame the HD-DVD release doesn't include any bonus materials not already featured on the standard definition release, but it's the film itself, and the quality of its presentation, that count.

About My Equipment:

The HD DVD reviewed here was played on a Toshiba HD-A1 player outputting the video in 1080i mode. Two displays were tested: a 1366x768 Sony BRAVIA KDL-32V2000 32" LCD TV connected via HDMI, and a 1680x1050 Sony MFM-HT205 20" LCD monitor connected via component. Audio was output to a Creative Labs Inspire 5700 5.1 audio setup with an onboard Dolby Digital/DTS decoder. Because my hardware does not support the new Dolby Digital-Plus format, the HD DVD player automatically converted the audio stream to DTS.