David O. Russell’s The Fighter is a heavyweight drama that will leave you feeling punch drunk in its wake, an appropriately understated film that is as much about family as it is about boxing. It pieces together the story of Irish Mickey Ward, a welterweight brawler from Lowell, Massachusetts, and his progression towards a shot at a title fight. So far so so-so, another sporting flick about a guy on a Rocky road to achieve his competitive ambition. But it is the setting of Mickey’s bouts against the backdrop of his troubled relationships with his mother Alice and brother Dickie Eklund, himself a former fighter whose addiction to crack has ended his career, that lifts this film above the derivative sequels of Stallone’s eponymous slugger.
Mark Wahlberg, undoubtedly the savviest player in Hollywood, fulfills a career-long ambition in the lead role as Mickey. Having developed the project, and his physique, for the last six years, he is every bit at home inside the ring as he is outside; the boxing scenes quite literally pack a punch, a visceral and sweaty evocation of two guys beating the crap out of each other. Wahlberg’s own shady past as a fighter and wayward youth in Boston’s poorer neighbourhoods shines through, and he presents himself as a competent and powerful pugilist. And a shiny belt too for the film’s excellent boxing montage, bringing a quick-paced novelty to splashes of sweat and saliva shooting from fisted faces.
We meet Mickey as his career is careening out of control, with promoters using him as a punching bag, a stepping-stone for their fighters’ advancement. The weight of his losses is paying a toll, as he feels he is letting down his promoter and trainer, Alice and Dickie respectively. They, on the other hand, are not afraid to weigh in on exactly what Ward should be doing and whom he should be fighting, with painful results. Wahlberg is absorbing as Mickey, a nuanced performance of less is more realism; he knows his place in the family, that Dickie is the showman, but conveys through every sly shrug and pout all the frustration to achieve success and an eagerness to please the people in his life.
Melissa Leo is wonderfully hatchet-faced as Alice Ward, the kind of mother you’d cross the street to avoid. With bleached bouffant, commanding an army of nagging and trashy daughters, she’s a force to be reckoned with and likely to throw a left hook in an argument. She meets her counterpart in Amy Adams’ Charlene, a barmaid who falls for Mickey’s stoicism, and only has his best interests at heart. Charlene, though, is no shrinking violet, and goes toe-to-toe with Alice and her crew, showing a distinct salt-of-the-earth saltiness and isn’t afraid to mouth off to Mickey’s sisters either. Suffice it to say, MTV Girl may be the go to slur of 2011.
But credit where credit is due goes to Christian Bale, whose Dickie is The Fighter’s tragic hero. In many ways this film is like a spiritual spin-off of Elia Kazan’s masterpiece On the Waterfront, with Bale the Brando bum who could have been somebody, could have been a contender. He captures the exuberant energy and mania of Dickie, a wild-eyed junkie whose crack hits cloud his shrewd reading of the sport and deprived him of his chance at greatness. He’s still a hero to the lowly folks of Lowell, a gritty concrete rat hole, but his celebrity and far-fetched hopes to relaunch his boxing career come across as somewhat pathetic and sad. You want to like him, you want him to be better, you don’t want him to let Mickey down. But you know he will. At the end of the day only he can cast off his demons and leave the drugs behind. Bale, an actor known for his aggressive outbursts, is simply brilliant as Eklund. Together with Russell, himself no stranger to unbridled aggression, Bale brings a suppressed streak of violence and possibility to Dickie and the film is as much about his fight for redemption as it is for Mickey’s shot at the title.
4 Likes.
No comments:
Post a Comment