Amazing Supporting Acting, but the rest of the film is fairly average.

Rating: 7/10 (28 October 2012)

I thought this was a fairly good film but I found it lacked anything to really differentiate it form so many film that are so similar to it. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it as a film, but still I found it didn't offer anything extra or anything else to make it a little more exciting.
To start with I found the whole story fairly dull, there were no real high points and found that even the dramatic ending which was a truly spectacular achievement was underplayed which was particularly odd, especially for a fighting film. Far too much emphasis was also put on the mother and sisters which kind of became tedious after just a small pat of the film, as they were fairly irrelevant as there were simply too many of them there all at once.
However I really did think that the way the fights was shown was original, using a TV style of shots was nice to give the film a sense of realism, as well as the montage of fights in the middle of the film which had smooth transitions and didn't over emphasise everything. In this film I felt some of the acting was really energetic Christian Bale being the first actor that comes to mind, as he really to show the crazy drug induced brother well, I felt that Amy Adams was also a welcome edition to the cast although I also felt she kind of lost her determination as a character towards the end, that be said she was still a pleasure to watch.
My biggest disappointment for this film was Mark Wahlberg who I found to be completely emotionless the whole film, which is sad as usually he shows more passion for a role but he really was quite wooden in his acting, but I get the feeling he was told to this rather than that being his own interpretation, but this did allow Bale and Adams to really steal the show, so to speak.
All in all I liked this film but felt it was really let down in how it was shown, which was a shame as there were some great acting performances in there. Worth a watch but it can be a little dull at times, particularly with the family problems.