Christian Bale is surreally good as crackhead former palooka

Rating: 10/10 (2 January 2011)

Mark Wahlberg keeps up to as the brother and aspiring boxer. Amy Adams was great as Mark's girlfriend, and the entire supporting cast was pitch perfect. How did they ever cast the family? One gets the impression they were real life & not actors. The mother and her brood of harpie daughters were the roughest bunch of females ever to appear in a movie that wasn't science fiction. You could definitely see how they were cut from the same mold as Bale's character but Wahlberg's character seemed too decent to be from that group of people.
You wonder who gets the nod for best actor in this film. Wahlberg or Bale? Bale's character might seem to be confined to a supporting actor nod but Bale made the film a great one and if it wins best picture (which seems like a good bet), Bale would seem to be inline to get most of the credit.
Anyway, a great picture, not to be missed. Quite possibly one of the best boxing films ever made. And Bale's performance was one for the ages.