Review: The Fighter

     Practically from the very beginning of the town, Hollywood has had an obsession with boxers and fighters. From Wallace Beery in the original 1932 version of "The Champ", to Kirk Douglas in 1949's "Champion", to the winner of Best Picture in 1976, "Rocky" (and its many sequels), to Robert De Niro's classic turn as Jake LaMotta in Martin Scorsese's 1980 classic "Raging Bull", to Russel Crowe's Depression Era Jim Braddock in Ron Howard's "Cinderella Man", the list of "boxing movies" goes on and on and has become a bona fide genre in and of itself. While I am not the genre's biggest fan, as the abbreviated list above shows, there have been some good films in the genre. Given the history, any director attempting to make a boxing film has to be very competent to make his unique stamp on the genre. If you have been following the awards season (including the coverage on this blog), you know David O. Russell's "The Fighter" is consider to be one of the main players in this year's Oscar race and has received much praise from critics all over the country. But does it live up to the hype? And how does it stack up against some of the other famous films in the genre?

     Like many other boxing flicks, "The Fighter" is a true story based on a real boxer. The film tells the story of Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his difficult journey to becoming light welterweight champion of the world. Mickey is a resident of the blue-collar town of Lowell, Massachusetts, and his boxing career is managed by his large eccentric family. In particular, his mother Alice (Melissa Leo) acts as Mickey's manager, and his older half-brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) is his trainer. Unfortunately for Mickey though, his family doesn't exactly have his best interests at heart. Dicky, who is a local celebrity for "knocking out" Sugar Ray Leonard (although he really slipped, and Dicky lost the bout by a decision), is incredibly flakey and self-absorbed, as well as a crack addict, which makes him less than reliable as Mickey's trainer. Meanwhile, his mother obviously favors her older son Dicky, and is more concerned about the documentary being made on Dicky's life and getting his comeback started.

     After Mickey gets pummeled by a last-minute replacement who belonged in a whole weight-class above Mickey in a fight on ESPN, it becomes clear to Mickey that if he is to succeed, he needs to break away from his family. With some convincing from his bartender girlfriend Charlene Fleming (Amy Adams), he finally makes the split, and takes up an outside offer to train all-year round. The decision doesn't sit well with most of the family (as well as his choice of a girlfriend), and in order to try to raise money to keep Mickey's career in the family, Dicky resorts to a prostitution scam that lands him in jail. The change in management turns out to be just what Mickey's career needed though, as he slowly rises up the ranks, and eventually lines up a championship bout in London against the Irish Shea Neary. Just as Mickey is training for the biggest fight of his life,  Dicky is released from prison, which causes his dysfunctional family to explode in conflict.

     The film is as much about family relationships as it is about boxing, including a parent who clearly plays favorites with a son battling addiction, and it is these relationships that move the film along. While the family dynamics are interesting enough and do undoubtedly exist among many families, parts of the story are cliched and don't shine any unique light on these issues. The film also spends some time chronicling the troubles caused by Dicky's crack addiction, and while it does this respectably, I have personally always found explorations of addiction on film to be a bit tedious. While addiction is very painful to individuals and their family members, in the end it is as simple as, "drugs are addicting and ruins people's lives", which is the same thing you could hear in a public service announcement, and doesn't exactly make for the most nuanced subject matter a film could cover.

     Besides the film's simplistic take, I also had a few minor problems with the direction under David O. Russell. Maybe to imitate the documentary being filmed on Dicky, the film starts out using a slightly shaky camera and an abundance of close-ups. The pacing of the film in the beginning is a bit hectic and really stresses the point on the "cooky working-class" style of Mickey's family. It is because decisions such as this that I have never quite understood the cult following of director David O. Russell. Although I have admittedly only seen one of his other films, "Three Kings", which is a very mediocre film that has nevertheless managed to achieve cult status, I have yet to see anything from O. Russell that has earned him the right of the "auteur" tag. "The Fighter" though eventually gets into a groove, and both the presentation and the flow mellow out, getting out of the story's way.

     For any boxing film, there is rightfully going to be a lot of attention paid to boxing scenes and how there filmed. In this department, I do have to give David O. Russell some credit. The scenes are done basically as you would watch them on ESPN and pay-per-view, and while it may come across as rather plain to some, no other boxing film I have seen has taken this approach, and I appreciated the low-key style compared to some of the slow-motion grandiosity that is the default setting for many boxing (as well as sports) films.

     The real saving grace for the film though is the above-par performances (and is the main thing that well boost its Oscar total come nomination day). While there are good performances throughout the cast, the three performances from Melissa Leo, Mark Wahlberg, and Christian Bale especially standout. Leo's Alice is a hard, working-class mother, who wears her emotions on her sleeves. The most interesting aspect of the performance though, is her obsessive relationship with elder son Dicky, and Leo nails the doting nature of a mother who clearly has a favorite. Meanwhile, the film's star Mark Wahlberg (the one major cast member likely to be left out of an Oscar nomination), gives a great performance as the solid straight-man, allowing the other actors to shine with their eccentricities. Wahlberg has proven to be apt at these type of performances throughout the years, and because they aren't as showy as his fellow cast members, he is consistently underrated as an actor. Without a sane protagonist, movies like "The Fighter" would be left without anyone for the audience to sympathize with, creating a gulf between the film and its audience. The best performance though (and the one that is getting the most awards buzz), is Christian Bale as the washed up crack-addict brother. At times Bale does dip into the idiosyncrasies that so many actors rely on to create unusual characters, but to Bale's credit, he does not use this as a crutch. After getting to know Bale's Dicky, it is the personality of the character, with his flaws and his sincere (if not always present) concern for his brother, that comes across more than anything else, which is exactly how it should be.

     "The Fighter" is a mixed bag of sorts: questionable stylistic choices, interesting but simple story line, and above-average acting. The result is a "meat and potatoes" film that far from revolutionizes the genre, but is a good solid entry. If your in the mood for a boxing or sports film, or a movie exploring family tensions and addiction, then it's worth a trip to the theater. Otherwise, given the prices of tickets these days, you may want to make this a rental.

Rating: 8/10

Christopher Lominac