When most movie fans think of boxing movies, they immediately think of the Rocky films. Since the first Rocky was released in 1976, no boxing movie has come close to making as big of an impact. Though The Fighter is a different type of boxing movie because it is based on a true story, it is making a similar type of splash.
The Fighter will get compared to Rocky like all boxing films do, but in reality they are two completely different stories. The Fighter takes place in Lowell, Massachusetts and tells the story about about two professional boxing brothers, Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) hand Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale). Ward is a struggling welterweight boxer being managed by his brother and his mom. But his brother has trouble balancing the training of his brother with his crack addiction. Ward and his girlfriend (Amy Adams) continually struggle with Ward’s mom and brother influence on him as they keep getting him into bad fights. Meanwhile, Eklund continues to miss training sessions. Ward has to face the decision of picking a new trainer or staying with his family, and Eklund has to deal with numerous arrests and an HBO documentary about his past boxing heroics and current crack addiction.
Wahlberg is the main character and plays the boxing part very well. He spent four years getting in incredible shape to play this part and even had the real Micky Ward on set to critique his acting to make sure he was as realistic as possible. Though Walberg was impressive, Christian Bale clearly stole the show. Evidence of that is the fact that he won Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globe Awards and is nominated for the same award at the Academy Awards. His impersonation of the real Dicky Eklund is spot on. At the end of the movie, they show a conversation between the real-life Ward and Eklund. It is incredible at how similar Bale gets to talking and acting like Eklund does.
One criticism of The Fighter is that the decision that Ward faces about whether or not he should pick a different trainer or stick with Dicky and his family drags on for too long. Ward’s girlfriend is constantly trying to convince him to ditch his family and follow his dreams. On the other hand, his family wants him to dump this “bad influence”. This conflict drags on throughout the movie and doesn’t end until the end of the movie.
Overall this movie receives an 8.5 out of 10. It’s hard to argue with the fact that The Fighter is up for several Oscars, including Best Picture, and the only reason that it doesn’t get a top rating is because it was not perfect.
