T.K.O.

(Ahem) As I have said several times, my biggest shock over Million Dollar baby was not that it was made, and was not that it was such an unfair caricature of Christians, and not that it was such a criminally incomplete treatment of the next BIG MORAL issue that will ravage our society.

My biggest shock over this film was why so many critics lined up to lavish praise on it. Including the Christians. (Honestly, the only thing praise-worthy in the film was Morgan Freeman, who is always brilliant.)

If a Christian writer tried putting in a heavy-handed "This is what you must think and feel" voice-over into his or her movie, Christian and secular critics alike would revile and lambast the same.

Why, suddenly, is a two-hour parade of one-dimensional caricatures, great art? Principally, I point to the Trashiest of White Trash Southerners from whose loins sprang the heroic Maggie Fitzgerald. The director didn't let these poor folks have a single glimpse of sympathy. This has traditionally been the definition of bad characterizations.

Why is it okay to have shoddy research and (frickin' mind-blowlingly) implausible plot points - like a woman being a knock-out artist with no boxing acumen, and a blatant cheater winning after violating obvious boxing rules? Just to name a couple...

Why was it okay to telegraph every beat in the film as though having a keen sense of the obvious was a good thing in a drama?

Why didn't critics sneer when Frankie Dunn prayed out loud to God - JUST SO THE AUDIENCE COULD HEAR IT TOO?

Why didn't people choke on their own bile at the pathethic pile of pennies which Maggie uses to pay for her speed bag?

All good questions. I really want to know. REALLY.

Anyway, here's a sports writer who agrees with moi.