The Fighter

A documentary crew is following Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) and his half-brother Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg). Dicky is a crack-addicted shadow of himself still living off of his fight with Sugar Ray Leonard. Micky is a punching bag for better fighters on their way up. He's trained by Dicky and managed by their mother Alice Ward (Melissa Leo). Micky is taken by bartender Charlene Fleming (Amy Adams). When Micky's opponent drops out, he's paired with a fighter with 20 lbs on him. Micky is resistant but Alice and Dicky pushes him into the fight.

Christian Bale delivers an incredible performance that is matched by the great Melissa Leo. Both deservedly win their Oscars. The family dysfunction is crazy compelling. Amy Adams is also great. Wahlberg is a bit stiff but that's probably due to the amazing acting happening all around him. The movie is surprisingly funny. When the girls rush over to Charlene's house, girl fight and hilarity ensues. The only limiting thing are the boxing sequences. They're not the best but that's not the focus of the movie.

Do we have a lot of sport films where the underdog ends up winning and overcoming many obstacles along the way until the end? Definitely. Does The Fighter succeed? Very much so...

For a film like this it is very difficult to make it completely unpredictable, yet while The Fighter is in a way conventional, it is also unpredictable many times. It has great characters to boot, but also a strong cast that is willing to give it their all. This is the best ensemble cast of the year,, many amazing performances. First, I start off with Mark Wahlberg, who has been the most under the radar, but he is definitely up for this. He is a great lead and I am surprised he was as good as he was. I am also very pleasantly surprised by Amy Adams. Not to say she is a bad actress, but I was always used to her roles all being similar and now she is in a completely different role for her, and to say she succeeds is an understatement. She is excellent, and is only made strong when sharing the screen with any other actor. Melissa Leo is also great, and I think she is on par with Adams. The difference between Adams and Leo is that Leo has the more award-baity role. Now we have Christian Bale, who I do think is the best. I have seen his performances and while he has always been good, he has never truly risen above others in his films, here he does. He is excellent, and he as of now deserves that Oscar.

David Russel's direction is part of what makes this film so great, He soars scenes to unbelievable heights and I think that the screenplay in another director's hands would have came out with a merely good film. But here, we have an excellent film, perhaps better than 2008's The Wrestler, and one of the best films of the year.

Look, i like the film, I think it's awesome but I also think were the characters were played by less effective actors, this wouldn't be as awesome as it is. The biggest fault for me, is that the main character has less personality than most sports characters in sport films. Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg) has a crackhead brother, former boxing great played flawlessly by Christian Bale, and he has manager-mom played by brilliant Melissa Leo. Mark Wahlberg has range, he is a good actor, but Mickey just fell flat for me. I wasn't invested much in Mickey so when the boxing matches came on, I didn't care much. But the performances by the backup cast are fantastic. If anything, that's worth the concession price.

When it comes to winning awards, boxing films seem to always be contenders; as such, the thought of watching "another boxing film" can be off-putting. But "The Fighter" hangs in and fends off those labels, earning every bit of its critical praise. That's because most of the fighting in this film takes place out of the ring; "Irish" Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) spars with the troublesome brother who trains him and his mother who manages him and these superb supporting characters have their own challengers to overcome.

David O. Russell brings a needed dose of realism to the boxing genre, downplaying the underdog nature of Micky's true story and focusing on the relationships that push him through and hold him back all throughout his journey toward the welterweight title. Much of the time, in fact, the story feels equally Micky's and his brother's. Dickie Eklund (Christian Bale), as beat over our heads early in the film, went ten rounds with Sugar Ray Leonard and knocked him down, becoming the pride of small working-class town Lowell, Mass. — which as one might imagine, wasn't hard.

But Dickie, an off-kilter, fun-loving yet irresponsible guy (a transformative performance from Bale to say the least), spends the time he's not training Micky in crack houses. In fact, he's completely oblivious to the fact that HBO is following him around for their documentary on crack abuse, not one about his "comeback." It's clear that his behavior is keeping Micky, whose had a string of bad losses of late, down. After an embarrassing fight in which Micky was mismatched, Micky suddenly finds himself wondering whether he should keep his boxing career and family separate.

The idea of it irritates Micky's mother Alice, played by Melissa Leo, who impressively embodies every controlling mother. Alice sits in her house most days and smokes cigarettes while her seven grown daughters pathetically vie for her attention. Leo keeps Alice from being an aggravating total monster, providing a more complete picture of a mother whose blurred the line between business and family.

Amy Adams also excels in her supporting role, a bartender and college dropout, but one who — like the audience — sees how Micky's family has kept him back and as his girlfriend pushes him toward the right path. Interestingly, as she grows more invested in Micky's career, the script divides her from the audience, which gives her performance more weight.

Russell's characters have a harsh reality to them, much like the Boston-based characters in Ben Affleck's films "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town." In addition to looks, clothes and mannerisms, Russell chooses a more hand-held documentary feel for the film like Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler" and even opts to film parts of the boxing sequences with lenses like the ones used in the late '90s to give the feel of watching a live broadcast.

The fights, though effective, remain secondary to the other "fighting." Watching Dickie spiral downward and come back up again, Alice have trouble letting go and Micky struggle to speak up for himself and recognize what he truly needs serves as the more compelling conflict. All together, they give "The Fighter" the best ensemble cast of 2010. And like all great boxing films, all these tensions blow in and out make their way symbolically into the boxing ring for that final fight. As Dickie urges on his brother in the waning rounds of the championship fight, he captures it perfectly when he says "everything that's happened, take that out there with you."

The emotional moments of "The Fighter" do lack a real knockout and many intimate moments are tempered with humor in awkward but not scene-ruining ways, but rather than be a heavyweight drama that rides the underdog story for two hours, "The Fighter" opts to be something a bit more natural by fixing on the right things: the people and the personal relationships that hurt or harm us, are all essential to our success.

~Steven C

Visit my site at http://moviemusereviews.com

First off, Bale's performance is phenomenal.

It makes this movie rewatchable, but not in the regular rotation - because it's basically a movie about a bunch of white trash; and how interesting can that really be? Lol It's one I'll definitely watch every few years, because it's good - but not something I'd watch once a year, or throw on for background noise, while doing something else.

It's maybe the firmest 7 I've ever given.

Wahlberg is always just Wahlberg, you either like him or you don't.

I like him, so I don't mind it when they cast him.

But know what you're getting into.

You're just watching it for Bale's performance.

The people they play are all entirely unlikable, outside of Wahlberg and his girlfriend.