The Fighter - 8.0

30 seconds into The Fighter (which is an absolutely horrible title by the way) I was blown away by Christian Bale's transformation into this washed up crack addict. Watching such a big star become a character like Dickie Eklund, so you forget you're watching a star at all is pretty incredible. Combine his go for broke performances in movies like American Psycho, The Machinist (which I haven't seen), Rescue Dawn, and The Fighter with his more straightforward crowd-pleasers like The Prestige (awesome, underrated movie) and Public Enemies, and of course his work as the best Batman ever, and you've got easily one of the best actors of his generation. It's about time he got some Oscar recognition, which he'll no doubt be receiving shortly. 

After admiring in awe Bale's performance for a few minutes, the rest of the movie eventually sucked me in too. About halfway through I was ready to declare The Fighter not at all a sports movie, but instead a story about a decent guy (Wahlberg's Mickey Ward) trying to overcome his dysfunctional, selfish yet loving family. Then the rest of the movie was a pretty predictable sports movie; a couple training montages, adversity overcome, some drama surrounding the central romantic relationship, and (SPOILER) the underdog ultimately coming out on top. 

But The Fighter did differ from the typical sports movie in a few ways, some good, some bad. For one, it thankfully reversed the recent trend in boxing movies where the boxing scenes are filmed in such a way that you can't tell what the hell is going on (as much as I love him, Michael Mann was a pioneer of this movement in the otherwise excellent Ali). On the other hand, the boxing scenes were also filmed in such a way that a dramatic, surprise knockout wasn't all that exciting. I respect the effort to be minimalistic but there's something to be said for hollywooding it up (for lack of a better term) a little bit in those moments. On the other other hand, I did appreciate The Fighter going the anti-Hollywood route and never unnecessarily and unrealistically vilifying Ward's opponents as cheap shot artists or heartless thugs; Ward's character was developed well enough in the non-sports first half of the movie that they didn't need to manipulate the audience so they would be rooting for him. 

While the family relationships were difficult to trace and the timeline was a little hard to follow at times (it seemed weeks and even months would pass between scenes at a few points), The Fighter told a quality story that was elevated by great acting. Bale was obviously terrific but Wahlberg and Amy Adams were good too, while Melissa Leo's turn as Ward's mother/manager was a scene-stealer (and definitely Oscar worthy as well). Overall, terrible title, good movie.