The Fighter Review

All bets are in and if the Golden Globes are any indication, I the critic should not stand a single round against this welterweight biopic.

The Fighter

Directed by Chuck O. Russell

Based on a true story – presumably not the one where George Clooney punches him. Google it.

Ding Ding. Okay I’ve seen it now.

Distilled from the biographies of two professional boxers, The Fighter delivers on the genre promises of a sports movie by chronicling its under dog hero to triumphant against-the-odds success. Set in the working class town of Lowell , 1993, Mark Wahlberg plays Micky Ward, a boxer trying to escape the shadow of his half-brother Dicky Eklund, an almost-champion who is regarded as the ‘pride of Lowell’. He is managed by his domineering mother and a bitchy chorus seven sisters, all of whom curse when he brings Charlene the sexy bartender home, who insists he abandon his family in favour of new trainers and management.

In a short and innocent, single-entendre summation, The Figher is the story of a boxer with too many fists in his ring.

Wahlberg is stoic as Ward, and when set against Christian Bale’s yammering and giddy Eklund, affecting comedy ensues. Amy Adams accents her obligatory love interest with good charm even in her foullest lines – and there are many. Not so much a gripe, but an observation – it is bizarre to see Christian Bale outside of a blockbuster these days, bizarre-r in a supporting role, but to see him as a balding drug-addled ADHD-afflicted has-been, seems downright insane. He brought great humanity to the character, and isn’t obliged to front franchises all the time, but one can’t help but wonder if this role shouldn’t have gone to unknown to complement the ‘found’ sense of this world.

But I digress.

Russell’s camera is decided doco-style, adding emphasis to the true-story element. A sub-plot involves a film crew documenting Bale’s character, and the footage thereof is often a resort in times of exposition. Russell plays with many post-modern meta fiddlings, including splitscreening the credits with interviews with the real Micky and Dicky. When worlds collide.

Besides the comfortable acting and improvisational camera, this film should be exalted for following by-the-book the rules of a sports movie, and from within those trappings, exploring keenly it’s characters and themes. In contrast to, for example, Clint Eastwood’s otherwise shiny Invictus, which dwelt endlessly in slow motion on that final match we all knew the outcome of, The Fighter spends a good while reconciling it’s disparate sub-plots before getting to that final fight. What results is a solid understanding of Lowell, the working class environment and problems associated with crime and drugs. We come to sympathise with even those who antagonise our hero, so when we get to that necessary title match, we need to see him win.

The Fighter is a film that is solid in performance and direction, but it’s script is a delicate tapestry of plotting that should knock you out. It is well worth the ticket that I did not have to pay for.

But you should.