The Fighter

The film The Fighter (2010) is a Biographical Sports Drama about Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his work as a stepping-stone boxer, paired up against other boxers so that he may lose and strengthen their climb to the top. Symoltaneously, he's trained by his older half-brother, Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale)- a has been boxer, who's crowning moment was taking down Sugar Ray Leonard on an HBO special, and has since fallen prey to the abuse of crack-cocaine- is being filmed by HBO for a documentary which he believes will be his "comeback." Micky's career is a family matter, and his mother, Alice Ward (Melissa Leo), is his manager. He has a gaggle of sisters who support him, but he meets a former college-athete turned bartender, Charlene Fleming (Amy Adams), who he finds himself very attracted to and he takes her out. Micky is offered by his father's friend to train in Las Vegas for the year to become a better fighter. He grapples with the idea, his family largely blaming Charlene for not immediatley saying no. His brother, frequently bailing out of windows of crack houses to spare his mother seeing him there, is arrested when he poses his girlfriend as a prostitute to get money from a stranger, and then busts the man in the act, pretending to be a cop. Micky attempts to help him, running to the arrest, but the police break his hand and arrest him as well. In trial, Micky gets off, but Dicky is sent to prison. Micky washes his hands of his brother, and with Charlene's blessing, takes the training in Las Vegas, wanting only to drift away from the life his family started for him. But, his family is not so easy to let go... and what kind of a boxer can this second-rate stepping stone amount to?

This film is based on the real-life story of Irish Boxer Micky Ward. The rights were purchased by the writers, Eric Johnson and Paul Tamasy, in 2003. When Walberg came on the project, he wanted to show the film a great deal of dignity, loving boxing movies, himself. He showed the screenplay to Martin Scorses, hoping for him as director after his work on Raging Bull many years ago. Scorses had no wish to direct another Massachusettes picture after just finishing The Departed, and was equally disinterested with directing another boxing feature. Wahlberg passed the script to Darren Aronofsky.  Aronofsky accepted, but later traded it in to work on the Robocop remake, followed by Black Swan. Wahlberg and Bale chose David O. Russel to direct, bumping Aronofsky's credit to Executive Producer. It was filmed on location in Ward's true hometown, Lowell, Massachusettes. Some interesting cinematic contributions came out of Russel's work: he elected to use the cameras of the time in the film, giving it a certain realistic quality, and he also hired the team of cameramen who did the actual HBO shooting from the fights to replace the shot-by-shot work to produce a very nice likeness.

The Fighter was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Two counts for Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing. It received the Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, and Melissa Leo (not Amy Adams) received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The two also took home Golden Globes, Broadcast Film Critics Awards, and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Acting. As one might notice, a great deal of the acclaim following this film is in the selection of the actors and the work they produced. I would have to agree. I think that Christian Bale's performance especially was quite notable- and I am NO fan of the wife-abusing yahoo himself- but his work remains distinguished in this piece. The mother, Melissa Leo, is completely nauseating and so easy to dislike, but at the same time, so essential to the conflict of the story. Many of the roles- even those portayed by the gaggle of foul-mouthed sisters- stick with the audience. These are roles written for actors to want to play, and Wahlberg especially was completely invested in this piece... that being said, to me his performance was the most lack-luster of the bunch, but I want to credit him respectfully with his work in director selection, as I completely understand and agree with his lineup of choices for first, second, and third pick. This seems to be a film largely made by the actors, for the actors, and for the actors to explore. I think they did it.

Writing. The writing in this film was not really my favorite, but I didn't think it was bad, either. I'm not a huge fan of sports movies in general, and boxing is no exception, so the A story of the protagonist was not that interesting to me; I was much more attracted to the character of Dicky, and HIS story. This, in many ways, is a Family Drama piece, and Dicky's story is a large chunk of the conflict jigsaw mess, but the writers still chose to place the emphasis on Ward. I'm not sure I would have done such a thing if I had been the party adapting this story. To make this story about Ward is a clear and direct attempt to make another "boxing movie." But, one could argue that to make the story about Dicky is to clearly attempt to make another movie about a drug addict.

Cinematography. I did notice that there were some very interesting shots in this film, and only researching it later did I see that Russel paid such attention to his camera work. I think that's great, because in many contemporary films, the camerawork is always commercial and passable, but not necessarily interesting. This was an artistic decision and it worked really well for the subject matter.

Set design. Loved it-- very white trash; very appropriate. One thing I will note- which is really interesting- is that when I looked this film up after viewing it... this family is supposed to be Irish... but they all seem to be portraying themselves as Italians. They have the accept, and the million children- specifically daughters- and the fighting, and the set design reminds me of The Italian Bronx... it's very interesting, and I think that perhaps this has something to do with Wahlberg's great interest in Raging Bull which happens to center around Italian Boxer, Jake LaMada. The film is very much Italian, and boxers get kind of stereotyped with this "Italian-ness." Perhaps that's why the film took such a direction-- and perhaps the family, though Irishborn, really DOES talk like they're Italian- that may be natural to the piece. Whatever the reason, the design was very Massachusettes, and very realistic. Artistic.

My general opinion of this movie is, "Not bad," with a few really good scenes here and there. Would I have chosen it for Best Film of the Year? Definitely not- not even a nominee, but I can still detect the very moving nature of the film that bumped it up to such a status, and for someone who enjoys boxing movies, I'm sure this film would have been a home run.