A Typical Ego Validation Sports Drama Done with Particular Flare and Raw Intimacy

Rating: 7/10 (30 December 2010)

This heated, pulpy comeback tale about folks who've seen too many of those is quite a customary ringside drama, which in itself is not essentially a condescending assertion. This subgenre's a hard-wearing one and, when done effectively, is extremely involving, predictably upsurging to an encouraging feel-good finish. So by most measures, this highly textural work's done particularly, extremely well.
It's the story of a real-life boxer whose career was revived in the late '90's, Mickey Ward, in a physically hard-hitting but emotionally subtle take by Mark Wahlberg. The movie comprises the time before that renaissance, as he strains to choose whether or not to keep his family engaged in his career, chiefly his manager mother, played in another of Melissa Leo's powerfully indomitable, matter-of-fact performances, and his fellow boxer and trainer half-brother Dicky, played by a bizarrely compelling Christian Bale, and his astonishingly intolerant, self-absorbed sisters, whose presence gives Mickey that extra boost of respect from us, as it must've been hell's seventh circle growing up in an isolated household with them.
He's swayed to abandon their control by his new girlfriend Charlene, played by an increasingly more impressive Amy Adams. As with several of these movies, the story's not about the sport itself, but instead about the athlete's private ordeals. Here it divulges a depiction of the hurdles and hazards of mingling family with partnership. All actors concerned bestow an emotional thrust that advances toward overflow, director David O. Russell, who ordinarily makes heady comedies, confidently tells a forthright story here. And although I don't have any concrete grievances about this sensationalistic urban fable, from beginning to end it seems exceptionally susceptible to formula exhaustion.
It's one of these movies where two iconic leading men reveal to have endured arduous physical transformations out of Method dedication to their roles, as urban tough guys in an insular neighborhood, tackling big dreams, magnetizing relentlessly supportive women in an obsessive, violent battle for general respect. There are emotional training montages set to alternative rock (kudos for using the Chili Peppers), perilous drug habits, borderline-operatic arguments comprised entirely out of 'Bahston' brogues, the trading of insults. There's some innate attraction men have to this material, even apart from its sports-driven subject matter, the notion that the jingoistic warmth of blinkered urban neighborhoods such as these when romanticized on film is appealing, or that men feel they can or aspire to match the resolute gristle of the characters.
But the reason this very simple, somewhat tired story's particularly effective's largely due to the authenticity of every character, the cast so strappingly, affectionately worthy as they aim at the brawls that occur among family. Russell has taken a fable of legendary American redemption and one of those Hollywood scripts with way too many writers and come what may fashioned a film so stimulating, genuine and alive with knotty emotions that is feels like a fresh experience. The whole cast pours out remarkably moving performances. If they inevitably spill over the top, Russell's visceral balancing act allows it to feel like just another part of the insulated world he's furnished.
Using mostly hand-held cameras, he gives the impression that we're mingling with great curiosity, and it's left purely to his actors to spin the yarn. With its extraordinarily personal temperament that frankly is what makes the movie, Wahlberg and Bale take what could effortlessly become mere stylized pigeonholes and give the story not simply some severity but an unbridled showcase of masculine energy. An interesting aspect is that on the surface, it seems we're supposed to be compelled to lend the spotlight to Bale's bombastic rendering of an inimitably, compulsively watchable character, but it's Wahlberg whose unassuming, tightly internalized performance seems to be dividing critics, which is frankly a good sign, as a figure at odds between his allegiance to the tribe and his duty to himself.
Everyone involved seems to simply be letting go: Adams is getting a lot of kudos here because she seems so uncannily secure in a very atypically tough role, one that could've easily been yet another token supportive love interest but, owing to her, is a fully amplified character in the classic sense. And after an anti-war treasure hunt film set in the '91 Iraq uprising and a sociopolitical comedy about philosophy and the meaning of life, Russell seems keen to go back to basics, telling a guileless, unadorned story from the ground up. Even Hoyte van Hoytema, whose delicately measured minimalist lensing of Let the Right One In won him accolades, just hoists the camera onto his shoulder to follow the actors around.
Indeed the camera seems to behave similarly to its crassly masculine subjects, confrontationally rushing headlong into close-ups, weaving bumpily past bystanders and panning or tracking either smoothly or explosively depending on the mood it's reacting to. I was also impressed by the moving rendering of Ward's boxing matches, created in a rigorous procedural fashion with real-life commentary and shot with the same Beta-format cameras from early '90s sports broadcasts, giving the scenes a very certain look and a liberty from the inevitable comparisons to the fight sequences in Raging Bull and The Wrestler.
So this forceful, consciously in-depth movie, perhaps one of the year's best acting vehicles, wears its heart on its sleeve, but with such a nitty-gritty, aggressively naturalistic style, eschews being syrupy. All of its clichés are simply part of the reality about these characters and the world that the dedicated cast and crew are concerned with illustrating, and its ultimate messiness feels more like a surplus of seratonin than shoddy writing. Therefore, it's an especially uncomplicated movie, and it's trouble-free to write off as merely another sports flick about conquering odds, especially when the conclusion of the film leaves much unresolved, but it's also an especially intimate movie, which is much more valuable.