The Fighter based on a true story follows Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) an Irish fighter before going pro. Micky is trained by his brother, Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) who talks about his 1978 boxing match against Sugar Ray Leonard. Now in 1996 Dicky is a crack addict and HBO is filming a new documentary which Dicky believes he is going to make a come back at the age of 40. Dicky has also acted as Micky's trainer and their mother Alice Ward (Melissa Leo) has acted as their agent. But Dicky is unreliable and Alice is too controlling. As for Micky he has a fight coming up soon that he's been training for and it's suppose to be a guaranteed win. But when the whole crew gets to the hotel, they find out that Micky's opponent is sick and they brought in a stand in, as they call it someone who just got off the couch. Well it's safe to say Micky got his butt handed to him on a silver platter. After the defeat the whole family heads out to the bar and that's where we meet Charlene Fleming (Amy Adams). Micky asks her out and Charlene becomes a vital part of his life, changing his management team and cutting both Dicky and Alice out of the equation. As for Dicky he finds himself in jail after assaulting a police officer. From here the movie, Micky and Dicky's characters continue to grow all the way up to the last fight.
There were some interesting actors and actresses employed for the roles in The Fighter. Mark Wahlberg drops his string of cop characters and picks up a boxing glove and joining him on screen was Christian Bale who was also doing something different then his big hero roles in The Dark Knight and Terminator Salvation. As a crack addicted brother, he was quite animated on the screen. Amy Adams dropped the fairytale storyline from Enchanted and the cooking lessons from Julie and Julia to become a more rugged bartender who falls in love with a boxer. Overall, it was nice to see all of the actors try something new. Also in the movie was Melissa Leo, Mickey O'Keefe (himself) and Jack McGee (George Ward). Overall the cast brought the story to life.
The editing itself was repetitive throughout many scenes. One example was demonstrating the training Micky goes through before heading into the ring. Understandably, the use of training helps to show the continuous work Micky goes through to get better, but there are a thousand other scenes like it and we didn't need multiple of the in The Fighter. Another repetitive piece was when Dicky would try to escape from Alice or Micky. It always ended the same, Dicky would jump out the back of the window of the house onto some garbage bags and cans. Unfortunately for him, Alice or Micky would always catch him.
An interesting use of editing was the scene in the crack house where Dicky would get high. He was completely off his rocker, but was replaying his fight against Sugar Ray Leonard. During the sequence, Dicky was fighting against his friend, but in Dicky's mind, he was back in 1978 fighting against Sugar Ray Leonard. It's an interesting sequence because Dicky follows the same steps as he did on the stock footage.
Overall the editing was clean and there was a good use of stock footage blended into the film. The colors were also brighter and tinted with a sepia hue.
David O. Russell directed The Fighter. This is only his seventh film as a director. Russell has also done other films such as Three Kings, Flirting with Disaster, and I Heart Huckabees. He does have other movies he's working on such as Nalled, which is in post production and doesn't have a release date. The Silver Linings Playbook, in pre-production set to release in 2013 and Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, also set to release in 2013.
Overall I recommend The Fighter, to anyone who is a fan of Mark Wahlberg or Christian Bale or Amy Adams. The boxing theme is well worn, but thanks to some interesting techniques by the filmmakers it remains interesting here. The only downfall I have to the film is there is quite a bit of repetitive manner, but overall great movie to watch if you like boxing themed movies.
© 2011 beyond the films
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