The Best Of Morgan Freeman?

There has been one voice in my generation that has gone unmistakable and that voice belongs to Morgan Freeman. Besides being an uncanny narrator, the man has been a fantastic actor. Hell, he's been in almost every movie. Since he's loaned his actor talents to so many different outlets, there's a very interesting debate to be had. Which of Morgan Freeman's projects is his greatest?

A bold question, of course. Well, there needs to be some ground rules before we begin. First, I'm not talking about which of his movies grossed the most amount of money, that usually means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Also, it might not necessarily be a movie in which he won an award. That would just be too simple. I guess this is going to be just simply what I think is Morgan Freeman's greatest accomplishment, which hell, it's my blog so why not?

So, my ground rules. I was born in 1985. Shut up, I'm not old. I've taken a penchant to some movies that were around before my birth, but none with Morgan Freeman in them. So anything before '85 is out. Until the time I was five, the only significant movie he was in was Glory. A fine movie, except that two things happened: Matthew Broderick was the lead actor, and there was another prominent black actor, Denzel Washington. So that's out.

So basically, anything post 1990, starring Morgan Freeman as the lead, in which he wasn't trying too hard to win an oscar, is in the running. Let the games begin.

First Nomination: Unforgiven (1992)

Morgan Freeman plays a retired hired gun in this western about the redemption of prostitutes, no seriously, that's what it's about. He plays the old partner of Clint Eastwood, who particularly needs the reward money to feed his pig-farming children. When it comes time to pull the trigger, Morgan gets cold feet as he can't live that life anymore. As life is such a cruel bitch, he ends up being killed for it anyways as Gene Hackman plays an incredible dick in this movie.

Second Nomination: The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Oh hell yeah. Great movie. Morgan played "Red" the prison lifer who was best friends with co-lead Andy Dufresne (played by the lame ass Tim Robbins). This was also the first film that Morgan also narrated, as far as I'm willing to research. Red was a man who could get things, things that were simple for us in the real world to obtain, but behind a fortress made of stone...it was downright next to impossible. Red achieved such wondrous feats like obtaining posters of hot women from the 40's, being really well-rounded for someone who spent the majority of their years in a prison, and fixing most things that relied on chance for his favor.


Third Nomination: Se7en (1995)

Boom. Morgan followed up the ruby of Shawshank with the diamond of Se7en, pronounced seven. He played Detective Somerset, an aging, fed-up detective living in a city of evil that he's just had too darn much of. Brad Pitt played the new gun on the block and wouldn't you know it, it just so happens that the case they are working on is the strangest and most profound of Somerset's career. Kevin Spacey is running around killing people based on the seven deadly sins. The seventh, wrath, dooms Brad Pitt, causing Somerset to stay on the force and fight for something he doesn't really believe in. Yeah, I still don't get it.


Fourth Nomination: Million Dollar Baby (2004)

So Morgan took a bunch of time to do some "eh" movies, a lot of them based on James Patterson novels. He did play God in a movie with Jim Carrey and that deserves a mention, but not a nomination. Then he got back together with his old pal Clint Eastwood and made a heart-wrenching female boxing movie...in which he also narrated. This was a great, great film. He played the old, worn-out boxer who stuck around his old trainer's gym to basically clean up the place, I guess. However, this movie is out because he won best supporting actor for this. Wow, I guess I totally wasted your time reading this paragraph.


Fifth Nomination: Batman Begins (2005)


Here we go, a friggin' superhero movie! He played the confidant of Bruce Wayne/Batman, Lucious Fox. Morgan was the man that supplied Batman with most of the stuff that made him Batman. More so, he didn't narrate the movie! He was the level-headed genius that saved Batman's ass time and time again. This is a good one...


So let's see, after this, he narrated a bunch of crap, starred alongside Jack Nicholson in some crap, blah, blah, blah...I didn't see Invictus...ok, I guess that's it.

And the winner is...uh, Se7en! Why not? The reason being, of course, is that I just watched it on AMC and it's fresh in my mind. So there you go, the greatest movie that Morgan Freeman has ever done is Se7en. Se7en.