Ridiculous ending

I'm okay with surprise endings and shockers and stuff. So I'm okay with this movie going from a boxing movie to an assisted-suicide movie. The problem I have with this movie is how ridiculous and over-the-top it was. Sometimes I like an over-the-top movie too....but this movie didn't know if it wanted to be serious or cartoon-ish.

The last fight in which Maggie got paralyzed was absolutely preposterous. Well first off, all the other fights were un-realistic too. But that last fight was so ludicrous that it just made me try to forget it and put a new scenario in my head or something, know what I mean? Then her over-the-top repulsive family coming in and not only being greedy, but being sooo mean. And how bout the cartoon characters in the gym? They could have done such a better job with the black kid who bullied the dumb white kid. Made it a little more subtle, and then had Freeman teach him a lesson. Not just have the guy kicking the crap out of him and yelling....and then have Freeman come and destroy him in 2 seconds.

And then there's the priest. What a caricature he was LOL. Acts all holy....then uses the F-word first chance he gets alone with Eastwood. And at the end, when Eastwood has an incredibly sad situation he needs help with, through no fault of his own, not to mention how sad and painful a situation Maggie was in....the priest acts like a complete prick about it.

If this movie can win an Academy Award, then why can't my favorite over-the-top movie, Death Wish III, win one too??? Death Wish III was more entertaining.

I agree. The ending was ludicrous. Frankie would not get away with this for 15 minutes. The hospital where Maggie lay paralyzed was grim and devoid of light, with almost non-existent staff and no one to intercede on her behalf when the white trash cardboard stereotypes tried to make Maggie sign her house away. Silly (insults everyone's intelligence in a pretentious heavy handed way) and is a depressing waste of Hillary Swank's talent. I have the book of short stories by F.X. Toole that features this yarn, In fairness, the movie stays close to his work. It isn't believable either.

The film does have an overarching theme, and that is of love and sacrifice.

Maggie loves boxing, and she sacrifices herself to fulfill her dreams and ambition.

Frankie loves Maggie like his own flesh and blood, and sacrifices his soul to save Maggie.

Beautiful cinema.

~ There is nothing more pathetic than an aging hipster.

Maybe, but if you lived in the world I've lived in (including boxing and the messes made by the sort of family legacies shown here), you'd understand how much sense this movie makes. Because in the world I live in, we lose 'em left and right. For No Good Reason.

I thought the screenplay was moronic.

Her character was not realistic.
She supposedly spent years doing nothing even though her dream was boxing.
She is eating leftovers in a restaurant--why didnt she find some athlete and shack up with him or her?
There were all sorts of ways for her to pursue it---it is as if she didnt exist before Eastwood came into the story.

Also, her relationship with her family as absurd. They were white trash stereotypes who show no affection for her at all and yet she is loyal to them. And then she suddenly turns on them.
It didnt make any sense.

Well, it made perfect sense to me. If I was an athlete - or even if I wasn't - and I became paralysed from the neck down, hate to say it, but I would want to be dead as well.

So for me, to have her 'courageously go on living' being paralysed and with half her arms and legs chopped off, THAT would have seemed more ridiculous.



Never defend crap with 'It's just a movie'
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If you really believe this you missed out on a great movie. The point wasn't to make the female Rocky Balboa. We've seen this before, and again and again. The entire meaning of the movie is lost without it ending the way it does, taking into consideration the fact that Frankie and Maggy love each other and each is the only person who truly loves the other; and Frankie has long been estranged from his own daughter. But you obviously have a very limited understanding of film making. Eastwood didn't "pull that idea" from anywhere. He didn't write the script or the works the script it was based on. Moreover, I would hardly call the end to "Mystic River" "SAD, SAD, SAD." The ending to "Mystic River" is beyond sad. It's disturbing. It's absurd. It's haunting. It's revolting. But I wouldn't limit it to "SAD." I would say "Million Dollar Baby" is bittersweet in a way because Maggy realizes her dream, something few people ever do.

To me, it makes absolute sense that she had the accident so shortly after she's made a career. They weren't going for a Rocky-type of movie.

From Maggie's point of view, she's a late bloomer who had an explosion of a career. Then she's catapulted in a state far more miserable than she was before, so it made perfect sense she didn't want to go that way. She always liked to knock 'em down in the first round.
You could argue that's not fighting, on the other hand continuing would mean just undergoing her body falling apart.
Given the state she was in, I think it would be kind of heartless not understanding that she wanted to die.

I think, from Frankie's point of view, he redeems himself for the failed relationship with his daughter and not pulling the plug at Scrap's last fight, which left Scrap in a miserable state. Now he literally 'pulls the plug'.
Frankie's and Scrap's stars have faded long gone, with Maggie they saw their chance to have her star shine forever (I realize that sounds corny :) ).