The Fighter

Rating: 8/10 (6 February 2011)

From Oscar and Golden Globe nominated David O. Russell (Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees), this alongside Black Swan and The King's Speech was the big award predicted film, it was also the only one I knew about rated fives stars out of five, so I went to see it. Based on the true story, this tells the story of 'Irish' Micky Ward (Golden Globe nominated Mark Wahlberg), an up and coming boxer from Lowell, Massachusetts, being trained by his half-brother, former professional boxer Dicky Eklund (Oscar and Golden Globe winning, and BAFTA nominated Christian Bale). Dicky gave up boxing after suffering humiliating defeat against Sugar Ray Leonard, and since then he has plunged into a crack cocaine (and possibly other drugs) addiction. This is of course causes problems for the training of Micky, the welterweight wannabe champion trying to find a good fight with the help of his mother and manager Alice (Oscar and Golden Globe winning Melissa Leo). He misses out on a big fight against a competitor who becomes sick, and with quite a few losses he doesn't know where he is going yet, but he at least has a good social life gaining a new girlfriend in bar worker Charlene Fleming (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Amy Adams). Dicky is eventually caught and imprisoned for his drug use, with his drug life turned into an BO documentary, and while he is there Micky may be turning a corner with finding the right fights. Slowly he is beating his opponents with training advice given by his new trainer, and rising as a new up and coming boxer, and when Dicky is released he tries to reconcile with many people. Finally with such a high amount of wins and a great reputation as a successful professional boxer, Micky gains the big Title fight in London against an unbeaten champion, and in the end, of course he wins. Also starring Jack McGee as George Ward, Miguel Espino as Alfonso Sanchez, Peter Cunningham as Mike 'Machine Gun' Mungin, Anthony Molinari as Shea Neary, Anthony 'Ace' Thomas as Castillo, Mickey O'Keefe and the real Micky and Dicky. Bale is fantastic in his award winning performance, I am surprised Whalberg wasn't nominated the Oscar as well, Adams as always is reliable and likable, and Leo (the first Oscar winner to say the "F" word live) is pretty good too, if you want a real life boxing film which feels like Rocky, then you can't go wrong with this terrific biographical boxing drama. It was nominated the Oscars for Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Editing and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama. Very good!