Made up mind - wasting no more time

Rating: 8/10 (12 February 2011)

THE FIGHTER is another boxing movie that packs a heavy punch, and it easily resembles two of the most famous and beloved boxing movies of all time, ROCKY (1976) and RAGING BULL (1980), which is interestingly two very different pictures; THE FIGHTER combines that ultra realistic, intimate, wore down inner-torments with that charismatic, uplifting one- in-a-million shot chance of your lifetime with the big heart beating louder than ever, and it manages it. It's a difficult task to pull off, but director David O. Russell and the screenwriters keeps a great pace and we're given good time to root for the characters and the scenes, which holds much emotionality firstly by actors working their guts out. Mark Wahlberg plays the main character, Micky Ward, so straight-forward and stale that he actually becomes a stable holding point in a film where everybody else around him is all over the place, especially his mother Alice played by Melissa Leo and his crack-head, ex-boxer, personal trainer half-brother Dicky played by Christian Bale, both very memorable performances. I loved the fact that the film has this bruised and bleeding heart pumping all the way through, but in the same time it's got good humor and everyday sensibility, and it's way of using music (Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Whitesnake, Aerosmith and more) is almost ironically powerful. Take this film to the ring, you won't regret it.