"The Book was Great", "The Movie was So-So"

Rating: 7/10 (18 January 2014)

I'm a huge Micky Ward Fan, and before I watched this movie I was giving it at least a five out of ten, so my vote may be a little biased.
Before viewing the movie, I read the book. It was one of those books that when I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. In most cases the book is going to be better than the actual movie, and the reason why is the book goes into much more detail about his life story than the movie. Obviously the movie can't show every event, otherwise its going to be a ten hour movie.
Being a Die-hard Micky Ward fan, it was somewhat unussual watching someone else play him, and I had a hard time getting used to that. Saying that, I wasn't disappointed when I watched the movie. I thought Christian Bale did an excellent job in portraying Ward's half brother DickEklund, and Mark Walhberg was very convincing playing Micky. I didn't like how Ward's sisters were depicted. They were portrayed as being somewhat homely, unattractive and they didn't have any dialogue. Its almost like they were part of a posse. In reality, some of Wards sister's are very pretty.
The fight scenes were pretty good, although I thought they should have shown the Ward - Green fight which was the Friday Night Fight on ESPN. I thought that was the fight that actually turned the corner for Micky. The way in which Micky was able to come back and stop Reggie Green put Micky into prime time, and Reggie Green into retirement.
I would have liked to seen the Ward Gatti trilogy, but I believe they may save that for "The Fighter II".
All in all, I enjoyed it. Micky Ward was definitely a blue collar fighter, and he gave it everything he got, he earned every penny he made and he was a true fan's fighter. If you ever watch a Micky Ward fight you got your money's worth.
For all of the Micky Ward fans, buy the book, you'll enjoy it.