The Fighter | Film Reviews | Salt Lake City Weekly

The Fighter 

Rocky Road: The Fighter understands we need to care when the gloves are off.

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As a story about a scrappy, working-class nobody who gets an unexpected shot at the title, David O. Russell’s The Fighter was bound to earn comparisons to Rocky. And the comparisons are justified—not just because of its plot, but because of its concern for quirky characters and a sense of place.

Over the opening credits, we watch “Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his half-brother, Dickie Ecklund (Christian Bale) walking the streets of Lowell, Mass. in 1993. Dickie, who once went toe-to-toe with Sugar Ray Leonard but subsequently fell into crack addiction, is being followed by a documentary film crew; Micky, still pursuing his own boxing career, has Dickie as his trainer and his mother, Alice (Melissa Leo) as his manager. But between Dickie’s drug-induced unreliability and Alice’s lack of connections, Micky has hit a losing streak, and a likely drift into obscurity.

Ordinarily, that would be the cue for a conflict between a kid staying true to his dream and staying true to his roots, especially once Micky hooks up with a bartender named Charlene (Amy Adams) who encourages him to look out for himself. But Russell focuses on smaller character moments, like Charlene’s tense introduction to Micky’s gauntlet of sisters. Sure, there’s the obligatory “winning-streak montage,” but the way Russell allows the story room to breathe makes its bows to genre structure feel far less conventional. And the performances—particularly Bale’s sensational, motor-mouthed Dickie and Leo as the controlling Alice—get similar room to breathe.

Of course, eventually we’re going to need to see Micky in the ring getting his improbable title shot. And, there’s nothing overtly wrong with the fight scenes themselves; there’s just nothing particularly interesting about them, particularly after the looser, funkier opening 90 minutes. Like Rocky, The Fighter understands that we need to care just as much about what happens when the hero isn’t wearing a pair of gloves.

THE FIGHTER

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Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams
Rated R

Scott Renshaw


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Scott Renshaw

Scott Renshaw

Bio:
Scott Renshaw has been a City Weekly staff member since 1999, including assuming the role of primary film critic in 2001 and Arts & Entertainment Editor in 2003. Scott has covered the Sundance Film Festival for 25 years, and provided coverage of local arts including theater, pop-culture conventions, comedy, literature,... more

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