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Review: The Fighter

Out of all of the films that have arrived on the scene at the height of the awards season, The Fighter is possibly the one that has landed with the smallest of fanfare. The King’s Speech, Inception and The Social Network are receiving all of the hype, but all are films that have been in cinemas for at least a month or two, the latter two actually making it to the home formats before Oscar hits.

The Fighter follows the story of Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a small town fighter whose acheivements and local status is overshadowed by his older brother Dickey (here played by Christian Bale), a retired boxer who gained massive success and once ‘knocked down’ Sugar Ray Leonard, is now a down on his luck trainer for Micky, who also suffers from an apparent drug problem, and issues with the law. The film opens with Dicky the focus of attention, seen being followed around by US cable giant HBO for a fly-on-the-wall documentary about his big comeback fight. Micky plays second fiddle again, and although training heavily and getting put forward for bouts, suffers from family pressure and ends up losing a series of low-key fights. During this time he meets Charlene (played wonderfully by Amy Adams), a local barmaid who ignites a fire inside him that makes him want to be a winner once again. She inspires him to move away from the family pressures that weigh him down, and move into a new direction that could see him become one of the greatest.

The Fighter is based on a remarkable true story from the mid-1990’s, and is wonderfully directed by David O’Russell, a director that has brought more independent affairs like I Heart Huckabees, Flirting With Disaster and Spanking The Monkey to screens. Here, the filmmaker is back into the more mainstream cinema that he tackled first and foremost with the Iraq war drama Three Kings over ten years ago. Here he manages to bring a wonderful story to screens that deals with family, trust, love, envy, will power and the unrelenting want to succeed. O’Russell brings a very interesting style of filmmaking and unique creative perspective to the movie that I really liked. During the two major boxing bouts in the movie, one around half an hour in, and the other at the every end, O’Russell employs the use of video, and plays the action out as if it were being broadcast on television, which again I really loved. His use of music, frantic editing during some sequences and a more drawn out style during the more emotional scenes, he really nails it on every level.

O’Russell also manages to draw out outstanding performances from his actors, most notably Christian Bales as Dicky, Melissa Leo as the two brothers’ mother and promoter/ manager Alice and Amy Adams as Micky’s girl Charlene (is this really the same girl who captured our hearts as the princess Giselle in Enchanted)? Bale again has gone the method route and made his body look  something of a mix between a wasted junkie and former prize fighter, which is obviously the intention, but it’s his performance as Dicky which is just remarkable. He is 100% believable, he is this movie. It belongs to him and his performance. Leo provides much of the more humourous scenes in the film with her wild hair and chain smoking ways of being, but again she has transformed herself to become this amazing character, and again is very deserved of her Golden Globe and Oscar nods. Going on to Adams, the former Disney princess and indeed princess of comedy in her previous roles, throwing Hollywood a curve ball in a an equally ballsy move to become Charlene, the college drop-out other half of Micky Ward. She is again so believable as this character and finds the balance of being the hard-nosed bar girl as well as the caring source of inspiration and indeed driving force of Micky success.

Then there’s Mark Wahlberg, the actor who has gone a little more unnoticed in awards lists this year. You can see whiffs of Wahlberg’s previous performances, for example his in Boogie Nights, here. He brings a humble, though focussed and believable portrayal of the Irish-American boxer to the screen. Just reading about Wahlberg’s dedication in bringing this character to life on film is remarkable in itself. The star had a boxing ring installed in his house, trained for two hours before going to work every day and then boxed in between takes on other projects to tone his body for the movie. He moves like a boxer, looks like a boxer and even went the way of De Niro and piled on the pounds during a break in filming to look the part for Ward’s hiatus from the sport. Then he toned up again, lost all of the weight, and the big gut… in just five weeks. He has to be applauded just for that.

There aren’t a lot of flaws here. The film is, in my eyes, virtually flawless. As with all boxing movies, I didn’t really dig the sound effects used when gloves met flesh during the fight scenes, and I believe that the filmmakers would have done better to go with a more realistic sound. It was a little distracting, and even though I was totally eangrossed and ncaptured by those scenes, was aware of then bang, bang, bang, bang Hollywood punch effects, which got a little grating after a while.

The Fighter has a lot of heart and fire (apologies for the cliched term there), but more heart than anything else. It’s hugely dramatic, laugh-out-loud funny in places (love the seven sisters), gritty, heartpoundingly intense and above all entertaining. The experience will literally play on your mind all of the way home, and being the lonely film critic and seeing the film on my own, I couldn’t wait to phone a friend and recommend it.

This film is kind of a cross between Rocky and Raging Bull I suppose if you want to do the comparison thing. I actually enjoyed it more than either of those. I always find it hard with films like the two aforementioned, particularly Rocky, where you are almost forced to like a movie, just because everyone else says it’s amazing. It took me a long time to have an opinion about film, and have the confidence to say that actually, I don’t like this… and I don’t like that, but this…. I liked. A lot.

Grade: A

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