The Fighter

Boxing movies are a genre that sticks pretty close to convention. You know more or less what you're going to get goin' in. Mark Wahlberg's passion project, "The Fighter" is no exception. Wahlberg wanted to do this film partly because the real life boxing brothers came from the same streets that Wahlberg punked around on in his youth. In this case, the Ward brothers, Dickie and Mickey, are from Lowell, Mass., a suburb of Boston, which Wahlberg called home. These are pretty mean streets, a working class neighborhood at best, and Wahlberg knows them well. It gives this film the same kind of authenticity that the years other Boston-based drama (Affleck's "The Town") had. The streets of Boston are the new streets of New York.
Mickie Ward is the younger brother of a local legend. Dickie Ward's claim to fame is that he knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard (a dubious claim, it was more of a slip). Now Mickey is getting some attention in the boxing world as a welter weight. But as long as his tough-as-nails Mom is his manager and Dickie is his trainer, Mickey is going nowhere. His Mom still treats Dickie like a fair-haired hero and is all but blind to Dickie's crack addiction and the downward spiral that it's caused. These are the obstacles to Mickie's rise and the central conflict. How will Mickey reconcile his family and his ambition? The answer comes in a series of boxing sequences. They don't exactly stretch the genre, but they don't give it a black eye either.
Wahlberg's performance is middle of the road which is actually where it should be. He's the guy stuck in the middle, squarely between his screwed up family and his dream. Wahlberg doesn't have the emotional range for...oh say, The Lovely Bones, but here he's in his comfort zone. It's a role that demands physicality rather than emotionality and Wahlberg fills the bill. But the supporting characters, well that's another story. They have range in spades. Christian Bale is just this side of brilliant as the talented crackhead brother, full of manic kinetic energy, rage and charm. And Melissa Leo's messed-up Mom is a wonder to watch as she undermines Mickey's opportunities and falls victim to Dickie's manipulations. Amy Adams sheds the sweet and innocent tag for a turn as Mickey's salt and vinegar love interest.
Maybe my favorite thing in the movie is how the Ward sisters (all seven of them) are handled. They always appear together, a solid wall of blond bitchiness, without an effort at separate characterization. It's as if the witches from Macbeth (plus four) had grown up in Southie.
This is straight forward filmmaking, well paced and easy to watch. No new ground is broken, though. Still should be a slew of Oscar nominations coming out of this one.