a knockout punch

Rating: 9/10 (12 April 2011)

Based on a true story, David O. Russell's "The Fighter" is a knockout sports drama filled with finely drawn characters and crackerjack performances. The movie netted two of its actors – Christian Bale and Melissa Leo – a pair of richly deserved Best Supporting Oscars for their efforts.
In the role he was clearly born to play, Mark Wahlberg stars as Micky Ward, a welterweight boxer who, after quite a few years in the ring already, is still trying to make a name for himself as a fighter. Perhaps the greatest hindrances to Micky's success are his mother, Alice (Leo), and his older brother, Dicky (Bale), the former a hard-living, tough-talking broad who takes it upon herself to manage – and mismanage - her son's career, and the latter, a crack-addicted has-been pugilist himself whose one claim to fame is taking out Sugar Ray Leonard in a bout in 1978 (Leonard makes a brief appearance as himself in the film). Now Micky is beginning to question whether he wouldn't be better off just cutting the family ties altogether and taking charge of his own affairs, especially when a well-reputed professional trainer offers to take him on as a client. But how will that sit with a mother and a boatload of siblings who prize familial loyalty above all else?
Set in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1993, "The Fighter" brings its low-income, working-class milieu to vivid life. In addition to the thick Boston accents and mercilessly teased hair, "The Fighter" features what is probably the strangest, least "Hollywood" looking cast of secondary players I've ever seen in a mainstream movie. This is particularly the case with the women cast to play Micky and Dicky's seven unmarried sisters, all apparently still living at home, who serve as a kind of roving posse, eager to avenge any slights made against the family honor by outside forces, including Micky's highly opinionated new girlfriend, the tough-as-nails bartender Charlene (the superb Amy Adams), who isn't about to back down from this band of screeching white-trash banshees when it comes to doing what she thinks is best for Micky.
So dazzled are we by the riveting, award-winning performances of Bale and Leo that Wahlberg's beautifully understated work as Micky could easily get lost in the shadows. But it is he who gives the movie its emotional center, turning Micky into a character whose fate and welfare we come to care deeply about. If nothing else, his subtle, self-effacing way of coping with all the craziness and drama taking place around him provides a necessary counterweight to the showier performances - and immediately puts us in his corner. It also helps that Micky is being torn in so many different directions at once, when all he really wants is to finally get a chance at a title bout. Jack McGee, the roly-poly fire chief from "Rescue Me," also scores as Micky's tirelessly supportive father, George.
There's a definite toughness and a take-no-prisoners mentality to this clan, but also a closeness and a strangely admirable loyalty among its members that go a long way towards smoothing out some of those rougher edges. They're not necessarily people one would want to meet or have much to do with in real life, but as characters in a drama, they sure are fascinating to watch.