At Least it Wasn't A Comedy

Rating: 6/10 (2 September 2012)

Thank God, Mark Wahlberg isn't trying to make me laugh; he did what he does best. The Fighter, based on a true story about these two boxer brothers from Lowell Massachusetts who struggle in the business of boxing. Mickey, Wahlberg is the younger boxer who is trying to make it big time and be like his older brother Dickey. Dickey, Christian Bale, is well past his prime and is a crack head. He has been in and out of jail and is tagged The Pride of Lowell. Dickey and his parents are the managers of Mickey. Mickey lives in his brother's shadow and he wants to be different. He struggles with his family, his career, his new girlfriend, and himself.
Wahlberg did a great job acting in this movie. He knows how to act and he exceeded my expectations after some of the movies he did previously. His character is complex and sometimes the audience agrees with him, and sometimes he can be a bit selfish. He struggles with potential for greatness and loyalty to his family. Christian Bale stole the show however with his acting as the drug abuser and troubled older brother. I had no idea that the man who played Batman could take on a role like this. He blew me away with his performance. His character was a has-been whose career highlight was knocking down Sugar Ray Leonard. He is hogging the spotlight so to speak and that causes problems between him and his brother.
At times I thought the story was slow and a little boring. Not much happened. It reminded me a lot of Rocky but more fighting. I would have liked to see more action but there were a lot of emotional scenes with important characters which I did like a lot. Sometimes I was a bit confused with the story and I wasn't sure what the point was or where the story was going. I even felt like how Mickey felt. Was the story more about Mickey or Dickey? Whose story was it? Who was the major focus on? I understand it could have been both but one needed to be the primary and another needed to be a secondary. They both tried to b e the primary and it confused the story. Mickey wants to be a successful fighter while Dickey is making a documentary about him and trying to make a comeback, but ends up in prison. There seemed to be too much going on with too many characters.
Overall it was a good movie, it wasn't great but it wasn't awful. I heard it was fantastic before I saw it but it was not as good as I expected. Parts were really good, others were not. The fighting itself looked a lot better. It looked like blows were actually hitting and the punches sounded real. Actors had to do a lot of preparation for specific roles and the audience needs to appreciate that. Christian Bale definitely gets the WillyT seal of approval but the movie itself does not. It is a movie I'm glad I saw but I probably will not see it again. You can casually watch it, meaning you can do something on the internet or have distractions while it's on. Watch it with friends or alone, it doesn't really matter because you will get the same experience. The fact that it was based on a true story was cool and I did enjoy that the actually brothers were shown at the end credits.