The Fighter Review

 There are no spoilers in this review.

PLOT: A look at the early years of boxer "Irish" Micky Ward and his brother who helped train him before going pro in the mid 1980s.


THE GOOD: Story. The Fighter is a boxing movie. Typically, boxing movies don't interest me. However, combining it with a family drama worked really well. Knowing nothing about the story of professional boxer "Irish" Micky Ward, I got pretty involved with the characters and emotion in the movie. I think the neatest aspect of the film is the whole HBO documentary film crew that followed them around while Micky was training. When you find out what the documentary is really about, you realize that this isn't just another boxing movie. The movie has this great sense of realism about it. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it feels like this movie could have been the documentary for what happened.

Acting. Phenomenal acting from the whole cast. Mark Wahlberg put a lot of work into becoming Micky Ward. He worked on a strict bodybuilding regimen for four years before actually filming The Fighter. That means he was secretly working out while making his six previous movies (which we see a little bit of in Date Night). I have much respect for an actor that dedicated to a role. Not my favorite Marky Mark performance though. Christian Bale was also very impressive. He lost tons of weight to play Micky's brother, and former welterweight boxer, Dicky Eklund. He studied Eklund's mannerisms and got them down pretty good (you get to see the real Dicky Eklund talk at the end of the film). Bale is an accent master, although there were a couple times where I heard some of his English accent in his Boston one. Amy Adams was a surprising choice for Charlene Fleming. I mean, if I needed to cast a, excuse my language, bitchy female, Amy Adams would not be the first actress I would think of. She totally breaks her acting type and does a great job. The acting that amazed me the most was Melissa Leo's take on Alice Ward, Micky and Dicky's mother. She nails the accent, nails the controlling mom thing, and undergoes a complete transformation into character. She will get nominated for an Oscar and has a really, really good shot at winning. There is also a great group of women who play the Eklund sisters that are worth noting. They do white trash well.

David O. Russell. Fantastic direction by David O. Russell. Having not done a film since 2004's I Heart Huckabees, I was a little worried that he might have lost his touch. Oh no, he's better than ever. He really works with the actors on getting these scenes down. My favorite aspect of the movie was the use of the old cameras to film the boxing matches. Felt like I was actually watching archived HBO footage of Micky's fights. Russell even hired the director from HBO and his crew who had done the actual fights to film those scenes. Really cool.


THE BAD: Slow. I thought the beginning of the movie was really slow. I was kind of bored. I don't think it's until just before Micky's first fight that the movie picks up pace.

Audio. I don't think it was the theatre because the audio was fine through most of the movie, but there are a couple scenes where the music or crowd noise is too loud to hear any of the dialogue. The most prominent scene that stands out in my mind is at the bar when Micky first talks to Charlene. I missed practically that whole conversation because I couldn't hear them. I saw a couple other people point their ears toward the screen, so I know I'm not the only one who thought this.


THE END: The Fighter is one of the better films of the year and I'm sure it'll get nominated for a few Oscars. The movie starts out a little slow, but quickly draws its viewers in with an emotional family drama and against-all-odds story. There are actually plenty of good movies out during these two holiday weekends and you would not go wrong if you choose to watch The Fighter.


DISCUSS: What did you think of The Fighter? Do you generally enjoy boxing movies? What are some of your favorite boxing movies? Do you think this was Marky Mark's best performance?