Any disappointment I had at other recent movies faded when I was faced with the multi-Oscar-winning and universally praised Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood’s latest.

Clint plays a boxing trainer who ends up training a waitress played by Hilary Swank. It all ends in tears if you manage to stay awake that long. (I saw a boxing movie called The Champ many years ago, and it was rightly panned for being simple-minded and emotionally exploitative; if you can spot the difference, please let me know.)

Eastwood directs in his usual non-committal ‘style’, which some people might mistake for sincerity, and Morgan Freeman drags in his Shawshank voice-over in a laboured attempt to give the thing some gravitas. Of course this backfires if you actually listen to what he’s saying. The portrayal of working class families is patronising and even the boxing scenes are useless.

The disk contains some other stuff but unfortunately not a money-back offer. Astonishingly bad.

Mild Peril Rating:

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