The Fighter

Overview

Ok now, what is it with Christian Bale starving himself for roles? Playing a crack addict ex-boxer, he's not quite as emaciated as he was in The Machinist, but not far off. Then again, he's just taken home the Golden Globe, so he must be doing something right. Sharing this golden glory is a very deserving Melissa Leo, who plays the ferocious matriarch Alice Ward in this true story that was simply made for the silver screen.

With big hair and broad accents, the working class Ward/Eklund clan of nine (!) lay all their hopes at the feet of boxing half-brothers Dicky Ecklund (Bale) and Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg). As the erstwhile town hero, the 'Pride of Lowell,' who once went toe-to-toe with the Sugar Ray Leonard, Dicky may be the aforementioned skeletal shadow of his former self, but that doesn't mean he's done hogging the spotlight. On the contrary, this larger than life character sucks all the oxygen from the room as his younger brother struggles to make his own way in the brutal world of boxing. Their inevitable fraternal falling out is helped along by Micky's strident, scrappy girlfriend Charlene (Amy Adams), yet Micky must ultimately decide who he wants in his corner for his world title bout.

As a boxing film and family drama, The Fighter doles out just what the doctor ordered. It's astutely crafted, superbly acted and surprisingly funny alongside the requisite training montages and thickly applied themes. In fact in many ways, the film is akin to its lead actor Wahlberg: solid, committed and with just enough spark to ward off the blandness.

It's Bale who brings all the bells and whistles to the film with his obnoxiously over the top performance, while Leo quietly steals her scenes out from under him. Adams is somewhere on the sidelines, furiously attempting to rough up her peaches-and-cream persona, and mostly succeeding. And though The Fighter is obviously a passion project for Wahlberg — himself one of nine children and a long time friend of Ward's — he wisely doesn't compete with Bale's pyrotechnics, focusing instead on getting ripped and getting thumped.

Similarly, director David O'Russell (Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees) seems to have reigned himself in. This is his third collaboration with Wahlberg and yet he too appears to be playing second fiddle to this compelling true, albeit largely overwritten, story. But despite the fact that most of the edges have been buffed out — even with the presence of a crack addict &3151 The Fighter still has enough grunt make it a hefty cinematic contender.