Well Acted Seen It All Before Boxing Bio-Pic

Rating: 6/10 (29 January 2013)

When I worked in a kitchen one of my colleagues - Scott - was obsessed with films who seemed to spend every spare moment either in a cinema or at home with a pile of DVDs . I should point that he was someone who had no interest in anything art house . Everything Scott watched had to be either American , feature a big name or feature an action sequence so our tastes weren't very similar . Regardless of this one film Scott felt the need to rave about was THE FIGHTER . I'd seen the trailers and vaguely knew the story of Micky Ward and felt it was going to be clichéd true story bio-pic with embellishment and a happy ending . In other words it was going to be a seen it all before sports movie .
" Okay Scott " I asked " What's the selling point ? "
" The acting Theo .It's brilliantly acted especially Christian Bale who plays MarkWahlberg's brother . He plays his trainer "
Sometimes acting alone can't carry a film - only bring a film down and when I watch a film I'm after a good story so decided not to bother with THE FIGHTER until it was broadcast on Channel 4 . After seeing it I came to the conclusion that both Scott's opinion and my own are totally correct
Bale is an actor who is fortunate in that the roles he will be most remembered for are those that belong in a franchise such as BATMAN BEGINS and TERMINATOR SALVATION . You could argue he's luckier than he is talented but here as Micky Ward's half brother Dicky Eklund , a crack addicted , brain damaged former boxer he gives an acting tour de force . You know when you're on the bus and someone gets on and you mutter to yourself " Please don't sit anywhere near me please " that's the exact feeling you see when Eklund appears on screen . One wonders if Bale should have been drug tested after each scene such is his convincing performance . It's a story of mean streets and of mean people hitting rock bottom and you don't feel you're watching actors merely going through their paces
Where the film does fall down it's down to the usual flaw of making true stories dramatic and having to restructure things . Ward beats up and coming boxer Alfonso Sanchez which means he gets a world title shot against Shea Neary in Britain . In reality Ward fought another 6 fights , losing two of them before he got the title fight against Neary and with all due respect the title fight in question was for the World Boxing Union ( WBU ) which most boxing fans consider a mere " alphabet title " not a world title at all . Also the film feels the need to dramatise the fight with Ward being dead on his feet in round three . In reality Ward was wobbled in that round but didn't hit the deck . The fight was a slugfest for sure but was never as one sided as portrayed here . Perhaps most disappointingly of all Ward's three legendary fights with Arturo Gatti are relegated to a caption at the end of the movie
In all THE FIGHTER is the cinematic equivalent of the battle between Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard . It's a definite split decision . You can se why people loved the film , you can see why people liked the film , you can see why people disliked it and perhaps why people hated it . I'm certainly hedging my bets and voting for a draw