Rated R: officially for profanity, drug abuse and boxing violence. There is some mild sexual content, at least as mild as R rated movies go.
I must admit that I broke my number one rule in preparing for a movie review, which is not to read other notices before seeing a movie I intend to critique. I didn't read the entirety of Kyle Smith's review of "The Fighter" in the New York Post, and still haven't, but did see the first line as I was cruising through the website the other day. He wrote, "Pity the boxing movie that thinks it can be both 'Raging Bull' and 'Rocky.'" While I liked the movie more than Smith, that line kept coming back to me while watching the new Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale vehicle. For a moment I thought the quip was my original thought, but quickly realized that it was too good a line and must have come from somewhere else. While the insight isn't original, its nonetheless true. "The Fighter" does try to play it both ways: it wants to be a gritty and realistic character study of self destruction and family dysfunction and an uplifting underdog story with a rousing ending. It's not a great movie, and its weakness is this playing of both themes, the result being that "The Fighter's" conflicting spirits end up diluting each other.
The story follows the misadventures of Dickie Eklund (Bale), a drug addled, washed up boxer from the fighting town of Lowell, Massachusetts, and his younger half brother Micky Ward (Wahlberg), a promising young fighter trying to make it to where his brother never did. Micky is managed by his mother and trained by the unreliable Dickie, both of whom seem to be using rather than really guiding him. There is a menagerie of half sisters sired by I'm not sure how many fathers, that serve as comic relief of sorts (they remind me a little of a cross between the witches from Macbeth and the evil step sisters from Cinderella). Throw into this the always watchable Amy Adams, playing against type as a tough working class bartender, and you get an interesting mix of characters in what amounts to an opera played at the poverty line.
It's easy to like the Wahlberg character, because well, he sort of plays this same likable person in every movie. He does it well, so I won't knock it. Bale and Adams are clearly bucking for Oscar nominations. For her part Adams is less flashy, but very convincing in her turn as a college drop out whose life went into a direction she didn't plan. Bale channels his inner Robert De Niro / Daniel Day Lewis, obviously having lost all kinds of weight for the part. I didn't recognize him at first, he looked so emaciated. He also does one of those total immersions into a character, were the viewer forgets the actor he or she is watching, a quality that has made Lewis so admired. He's no Daniel Day, and it's tempting to accuse him of going over the top, but in truth I've met people like this; braggarts and posers who really have nothing to back it up on the inside. Does he over act? Yeah, a little, but in real life all self delusional Could-Have-Beens usually do.
Just as Bale's performance begs comparisons to others, so does the entire style of the movie. Director David O. Russell begins in a semi documentary mode, then moves into a more conventional film language as things proceed, but he always seems to hearken back to Marin Scorsese, especially in the soundtrack. But unlike the Master, who uses music to evoke a mood and recall a particular time and place, Russell's choices are from all over the map and are only there because they might sound cool, not because they may actually comment on the action (think of the use of Donavon's "Atlantis" during the murder of Billy Batts in "Goodfellas"). He even has the audacity to use The Rolling Stones' "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," a Scorsese favorite. But true to form he plays Keith Richards' famous guitar intro and the song's rousing chorus, but omits any lines with drug references. As with the rest of the movie, he want to keep it real, just not too real.
In fairness, I liked the theme of conversion and redemption that the movie develops. Dickie really is a different, better person at the end of the story, and I didn't take that as a cop out. As is my complaint with so many contemporary movies, they are so concerned with getting that happy ending and making everyone look good that the story loses its edge. While I bought Dickie's conversion, I think the rehabilitation of Alice, their mother, was less believable. "The Fighter" was made with the cooperation of its two real life heroes, so I can understand that they don't want to sell dear old Ma down the river. But she is so unlikable all the way through the movie, and her actions so consistently self serving, I couldn't believe that it was all just some sort of misunderstanding.
So, this isn't a great movie, and will regrettably get the Oscar buzz it so craves but doesn't really deserve. But for the performances of the central actors, including Melissa Leo, whose character Alice may have been unlikeable, but was always entertaining, I give this one OOO (3) out of four Hallows.
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