Movie Review: The Fighter

You’re the fighter, you’ve got the fire

The spirit of a warrior, the champion’s heart

You fight for your life because a fighter never quits

You make the most of the hand you’re dealt

Because the quitter never wins!

So state the lyrics of that great Boston punk band, the Dropkick Murphys. These lyrics are in reference to a song called “The Warrior’s Code” about boxer “Irish” Mickey Ward, who the band also put on the cover of that album (also titled “The Warrior’s Code.”) The rise of Mickey Ward’s fight to World Boxing champion is the subject of David O. Russell’s boxing drama, “The Fighter.”

The film stars Mark Wahlberg as Mickey Ward, then an aspiring boxer from a working class family in Lowell, Massachusetts. He is managed by his family (or more his strong-willed mother, Alice, played by Melissa Leo) and trained by his half-brother, ex-boxer Dicky Eklund (played by Christian Bale.) Dicky was once a promising up-and-coming fighter (“The Pride of Lowell”, as he was referred to once after knocking out Sugar Ray Leonard during a fight.) Now, he’s a middle-aged cocaine addict who tries to ignore the realities of his circumstances by constantly boasting about his eventual “comeback.”

Mickey has heart, and is hungry for success. He trains hard, but is constantly let down by Dicky, who sometimes shows up to train him. That is, when he is not snorting crack and being followed around by an HBO camera crew, who are making a documentary about his life (or, as he finds out later, how far down drug addiction can bring someone.) Mickey also struggles with his over-bearing mother, who refuses to acknowledge what Dicky has become and continues to boast about how promising he still is, while downplaying the efforts of Mickey, who not only has promise, but actually the drive to make something more of himself.

Thus is the setup for “The Fighter”, a very good drama that is less about boxing, and more about the dynamics of family, specifically between two brothers. Mickey and Dickey are both men who, at different times of their lives, seemed to have an impossible amount of weight on their shoulders; so much seemed expected of both of them, because of their talents, that Dickey never became the fighter he could have, and Mickey himself even comes close to giving up.

The cast in this film is amazing, especially Christian Bale who is truly electrifying! He creates a portrait of a man who never really fulfilled the promise of what he could’ve been. There is a moment in the film where Dicky, now in prison, watches the documentary that HBO did on his life with all of his fellow inmates. At first, he reacts like a star: “hey, look at me! I’m on TV!” But slowly, as he watches his life unfold in the documentary, he is reminded of something that he has been trying to ignore for most of his life: that he once had promise, but threw it all away through reckless bouts with drugs. At one point, Dickey turns off the TV and leaves the room; he finds an empty hallway and slides down to his knees. We don’t see his suffering closely, much like those closest to him, but it is suggested powerfully from a distance.

Mark Wahlberg is also quite good, but in a more understated way. He displays subtlety, rather than the constant screaming that has marred some of his more recent performances. He plays a man with big dreams, but also harbors deep insecurities. As frustrated as he sometimes is with his older brother, he still admires him so much that he feels doomed to be in his shadow, particularly in the eyes of his mother.

Melissa Leo is fantastic as Alice. She takes what could’ve been a one-dimensional “overbearing mom” type and creates a complex woman who loves her kids, yet she feels the need to be the captain of their destiny so strongly, that it often feels suffocating to her kids. Adding to her hostilities are her feelings towards Micky’s new girlfriend, played terrifically by Amy Adams (who looks…Ah…okay, full disclosure: she looks freaking amazing in this!) Anyway, Amy’s character seems to exhibit some of Mickey’s mothers’ outspokenness, and this creates tension in the family as they prepare for Mickey’s big fight.

As a boxing film, it is fairly routine. As much as I admire anyone who overcomes the obstacles of life to achieve their dreams, I’ve seen that story done much more rousingly in “Rocky” (and the boxing sequences here, while executed well, lack the true visceral punch of what Martin Scorsese brought to them in “Raging Bull.”) However, the real heart of “The Fighter” is in the relationship between Mickey and his brother, Dicky. In the end, when Micky wins his Title, I wasn’t so much moved by the images of him with his gloves in the air, the audience on their feet cheering, the kiss he gives his girl friend, ect. No, what moved me the most is a moment in which Dicky starts to shed tears for his brother. After missing his shot, he now watches his younger brother achieve what he never did…and he could not be more proud. That is the power of “The Fighter.”

Movie Theater Experience:

I saw “The Fighter” on Friday, February 25^th at the AMC Showplace Theater in Inver Grove Heights. All in all, the experience was decent (though, I am not a fan of those self-butter machines because you can never get the butter in the middle.) Anyway, the film was in one of the smaller theaters, which was unfortunate because I like to sit near the front, mostly so that I don’t have to hear people talking out loud behind me. In a smaller theater, I can hear everything, including the chatty couples sitting on either side of me. But things could’ve been worse: as I walked toward my theater I heard a group of really loud and obnoxious teenagers heading in the same direction. I thought “oh no! Please do not be seeing the same movie!” But then they all walked into the new Adam Sandler movie. Whew, never have I been more thankful for the existence of an Adam Sandler movie.