I love this time of year as directors and actors bring out the big guns and create well formed character piece movies, but for the life of me I can't remember a time when a fight has been so close to call as the bout for best film. Having seen nearly all of them now with just True Grit to go, each contender save for Toy Story has a strong and detailed focus on a powerful central protagonist, there's no glossing over the detail, there’s raw realism to each one of them and The Fighter is a shining example of this trend. It is a sports movie and the structure is typical but with a central character that you genuinely route for as his fights are fought not just in the ring but in his life outside it. With the type of gritty realism that reminds you of Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone, the setting paints a pretty grim picture of 1980's Lowell Massachusetts where drugs are rife and hard times are plain to see. The community of Lowell supports and idolises boxing and their local hero Dick Eklund who long ago destroyed his career thanks to drugs. His brother Micky who also fights has the chance to prove himself as a boxer but is held back by his families damaging motives and deluded dreams. He finds a way to break free and achieve his potential thanks to his new girlfriend and the support of his trainers, but not without consequences.
The drama here is electric, especially amongst the family where Micky who should be receiving all the support he can, is side lined by the damaging lives and habits of his brother and the rest of his family. With his mother as a manager Micky is at the behest of his family including his six grown female siblings who would all seek to gain from any success their brothers have. Confrontations and snappy dialogue come thick and fast when Micky’s girlfriend Charlene (played brilliantly by Amy Adams) is thrown into the mix. Mark Wahlberg puts in an understated but brilliant performance as Micky; in fact this is probably his finest work even though his character is overshadowed at first by Christian Bales off the hook performance as his brother Dicky. It comes as no surprise that Bale has received a supporting actor nomination at the Oscars as he behaves like and embodies the character he is playing, but Wahlberg is the same, his character is just more level headed. But it’s like with everything, you always remember the wild ones more and although Bale looks like he might steal it from him, Wahlberg shows that this is his film. And if you doubt that some of Bales performance may be over acting the film makers make a point of showing just thirty seconds of the real brothers in the credits, in that brief time it’s plain to see that both Bale and Wahlberg really knocked this one out of the park.
The way the sport is depicted and filmed is crucial to a movie like this and The Fighter makes the boxing feel very real by presenting it in a TV broadcast manner but with focused close-ups at crucial points. The fights are intoxicating and as more come the more you route for Micky to make it through. The hard work on display here is undeniable, long and medium shots give the actors little room to fake and Wahlberg clearly has put in the training to make the fights look real and intense. The drama of these fights and the clashes that Micky deals with in-between them make this a film that never loses pace; none of the scenes feel unnecessary. This is a brilliantly directed piece of work and David O Russell’s best work since Three Kings and once again it doesn't surprise me that he’s up for best director at the Oscars.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, the story is so wide in its appeal and to know this is based on truth is bitter sweet, I loved the characters and I was on the edge of my seat for the final fight earnestly routing for Micky, I haven’t had an experience like that in a sports movie for some time. As a lot of critics have already penned this is Rocky for a new generation. Go see it.
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