The Fighter

Rating: Null/10 (19 December 2010)

The Fighter is quite good. There aren't all that many surprises here, and those of us who ♥ed David O. Russel's out-there Huckabees will be a little disappointed by its safeness, but it is definitely good. Quite good, even.
The film's obvious standout is Christian Bale as Dicky, demonstrating his range and relevance as an affable, crack-addicted former fighter. Mark Wahlberg plays Dicky's still-fighting brother with unending restraint; he scores points for subtlety in the film's familial drama while losing as many in his charmless, unsmiling romance with Amy Adams's Charlene. There is exactly as much here as is necessary to make the film's finale engaging and rewarding, but very little to remember afterward--it really is quite successful in its predictable underdog ambitions, but it never really aims any higher.
All things considered, the Fighter is almost exactly the lackluster triumph implied in its generic title and trailer--it doesn't reinvent the sport underdog story, but it isn't trying to. This movie only aims to be a quite good entry in its admittedly overaccessable genre; in that it succeeds entirely.