The Fighter

The Fighter is the story of "Irish" Micky Eklund, a boxer from Lowell, MA who overcame long odds and a difficult family to become Welterweight Champion of the world. Marky Mar . . . I mean Mark Wahlberg plays Micky, and when we pick up the story he is stuck fighting no name fighters in an effort to get noticed so he can make real strides in the boxing world. His trainer is his troubled brother Dicky, played by Christian Bale. Dicky is also a former boxer, whose career highlight was knocking down Sugar Ray Leonard in a 1979 fight, but who let his personal struggles with crack addiction ended his career. Micky's manager is his mother Alice, played by Melissa Leo, who is the matriarch from hell, and a barely competent boxing manager.

Micky meets Charlene, played by Amy Adams, a local bartender that encourages and challenges him to be a better boxer and rise above his family problems. Most of the movie centers around this family dynamic. Micky struggles with balancing trying to train seriously for his fights with his loyalty to his brother, who taught him all his in ring moves. He further struggles balancing his newfound love and devotion with Charlene with finding how to properly involve his unreliable family in his boxing life. We watch the depths of Dicky's addiction, from disappearing for hours at a time when he is supposed to be training Micky, to going to jail for a stretch for impersonating the police in a money-making scheme. We watch Alice expertly manipulate her children so that she can continue to benefit financially from Micky's boxing career. Truly a messed up family dynamic.

During the middle of all of this family drama are some nicely shot boxing sequences. Director David O. Russell (who made one of my 50 all time favorite movies, Three Kings, coincidentally starring Wahlberg) expertly handles the actual fight sequences to feel authentic and realistic, which is unlike a lot of other films of this genre which stylize these kinds of fight sequences (such as Million Dollar Baby, for example); the boxing matches felt like they were out of an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary. The boxing is grounded in realism. And Wahlberg looks like a true boxer, with his body giving the physical nuances you expect from a professional. Beyond the ring, Russell really embeds us into this world and the Lowell, MA area. We become part of the community that Micky is fighting for, which makes us root for him throughout, particularly his climactic fight for the title.

The acting is top notch. The true standout of the movie is Bale, who totally encapsulates the well meaning but drug addicted Dicky. I think that in lesser hands this role could have easily been overracted, wooden, and archetypal, but Bale has the creative chops to flesh the character into someone we want to care about despite his struggles. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor, and he could win. I also enjoyed Leo as the mother of mindgames (pun intended). Another Oscar contender, she will make you thankful that she is not your mother. Wahlberg and Adams are also solid, as usual, but, they just fall into Bale and Leo's shadows. To use boxing as an analogy, Wahlberg and Adams are stuck up against the ropes while Bale and Leo dance around the ring - which would you find more interesting to watch?

The Fighter is not in the same category as other legendary boxing movies (Raging Bull, Rocky, Million Dollar Baby), but I think it settles nicely into that second tier, with films like Cinderella Man or The Hurricane. I think what sets this film apart from the others is how grounded in realism it is (it is after all based on a true story), the de-stylizing of the fight scenes, and the interesting family focus that it has. I think most fans of boxing and sports movies will enjoy it. Only time will tell if The Fighter gets a shot at the title with the heavyweights of the genre.