The Fighter

Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo, Jack McGee

Dir. David O Russell
Scr. Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson

This film tells the story of a fighter you’ve probably never heard of – I certainly hadn’t. But don’t let that deter you. This is a great movie about family, redemption, self-belief and, yes, a bit of boxing. With one of the finest performances you’ll see on the silver screen all year.

The Fighter is about the early years of “Irish” Micky Ward, who was to become the welterweight champion of the world and, by all accounts, a hell of a tenacious fighter. Micky lives in the shadow of his older, half-brother Dicky Eklund who had once knocked out Sugar Ray Leonard and is now a crack addict. Destructive and unreliable, Dicky is Micky’s mentor and sparring partner. Managed by his mother, also destructive in her own way, Micky’s career goes nowhere, loss after loss giving his self-confidence a battering. After hooking up with waitress Charlene and seeing his brother back in jail, Micky gives the big time one more try ...

At its guts, this film is about family. And Micky’s is quite a bunch. While he prospers without them and tries to shake off the shadow of his brother, in the end family is family. What is refreshing is that everyone in The Fighter makes a sort of personal journey, coming out a better person at the other end. It’s a heart-warming tale, amongst the boxing and drugs and bad 80s hair.

The Fighter certainty has an air of authenticity about it and when you discover the lengths the filmmakers went to to do justice to Ward’s story, it’s easy to understand why. Filmed on location in Lowell, Massachusetts – Ward’s hometown – many of the training scenes were filmed at the real-life facility Ward used in the 1980s. Fights were choreographed with care, using footage of Ward’s bouts. Director Russell used the cameras of the age to film the fights, giving them a very realistic and not overly stylised look. It makes for very good cinema indeed.

This film is packed with great acting performances. But while The Fighter is about Micky, it is the portrayal of Dicky by the ever-excellent Christian Bale that really stands out. Although both Matt Damon and Brad Pitt were, at one time, signed on to play Dicky, I simply cannot imagine anyone but Bale in the role. Showing his commitment to his art, Bale sheds the pounds (although not as many as for The Machinist) to capture Dicky’s harrowed, crack-addicted, scrawny physique. It is clear from the brief look we get at the real-life Dicky during the film’s end credits, that Bale has studied his subject. Bale is deserving of every award for a truly masterly performance. Wahlberg, in a much more subtle role, is also excellent. I’m not a big fan, finding him more often wooden than not. But it is clear that he has much invested in this role, creatively and emotionally. Amy Adams, as Micky’s feisty girlfriend Charlene, and Melissa Leo, as Micky and Dicky’s mother, are both superb – immensely likeable and unlikeable respectively.

This is an absorbing, tumultuous, gut-wrenching movie. Sure, it’s a boxing movie and with that comes the usual clichés and predictable ending flourish. But, much like the other major awards contender The King’s Speech, there will be few dry eyes by the time the credits roll and you will be pleased you were there.

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Micky Ward: I'm the one who's fighting. Not you, not you, and not you.