The Fighter Review (2011)

The Fighter is a great film from start to finish and has two of the best performances you'll see this year. The city of Lowell was set upon by director David O Russell and Mark Wahlberg to re-create the story of brothers Dicky Eklund and Micky Ward and how Micky Ward became a world champion in boxing.

This story is a telling of real living people (some of the characters in the film are actually played by their real life counterpart). Micky Ward is real life boxer but you get to see the other side to him, that of him being quiet and quite passive when it comes to his mother (Melissa Leo) and the brother that trains him (Christian Bale). Both seem to have a negative effect on his life but Micky doesn't realise this straight away even though Dicky is a crack addict.

Bale and Leo are great as the mother and brother and deserve their awards at this year's Oscars. Both play sponges of Micky's life and are a united front which you can easily tell in their performances. As much as they both say their loyalty is to Micky, if it doesn't benefit them in some way then they don't want to know. I've always been a big fan of Bale and this is his best performance to date. Once again Bale dropped the weight for the role (30 pounds) and looks so much like the real Dicky even his real family got confused on who was who. His a fidgety wreck that thinks he's on the way to a comeback fight and that HBO are making a documentary about him (which they are but not about boxing).

The Fighter is mainly a film about family and that sometimes you have to push them away to improve your life and become an adult. In addition to Dicky and his mother Micky also has to deal with his other sisters who back up their mother everytime. It's a wonder how Micky coped. Micky's only back-up is his girlfriend (Amy Adams) who only wants the best for Micky but sometimes gets frustrated when she sees Micky backing down to his family demands. Amy Adams gives another great performance and could of easily earned the Oscar over Melissa Leo.

We may have seen this type of film before (Rocky) but two great Oscar performances and great turns from Walhberg and Adams make this a great watch and easily one of the best films you'll see this year.