Unlike director David O. Russell’s earlier thematically complicated films (“Three Kings,” “Flirting with Disaster”), “The Fighter” is easy to read, which makes for an uncomfortable experience.
The film covers boxer “Irish” Micky Ward’s real-life quest for legitimacy amidst personal chaos. His older brother, Dicky (Christian Bale), was a promising boxer before becoming a crack addict. Their mother, Alice (Melissa Leo), is a tough-talking dame who bullies anyone in her way. Mother and brother are Micky’s manager and trainer, respectively, which guarantees that Micky (Mark Wahlberg) will spend his remaining useful years as a sacrificial lamb for a paltry purse. But it’s family. What can you do?
By 1993, Micky is pushing 30 and irrelevancy when he falls in love with Charlene (Amy Adams), a sexy, tart-tongued bartender. Then, he gets the chance to train professionally and possibly land a title shot. Micky has to decide if his last grasp at greatness can exclude his chaotic but loving family, a proposition fervently endorsed by Charlene.
That’s a dramatically ripe conflict, but in his attempt to capture a slice of working-class Massachusetts misery, Russell presents a burlesque. Nearly every scene in “The Fighter” has the feeling of second-hand news, or worse, stereotypes hijacked from a “Saturday Night Live” skit. Charlene has a tramp stamp. Micky’s sisters all have hair inspired by your local mall’s food court circa 1989. The soundtrack features songs from Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin. It’s rock loved by palookas who punch timecards and foulmouthed girls who drink beer from the bottle. Russell doesn’t profile these characters; he parodies them. Mercilessly.
The desperate showiness seeps into everything. Leo’s work here resembles a white-trash song-and-dance. Adams, who plays na�ve nice girls better than anyone, is astoundingly miscast as a tough cookie. Bale and Wahlberg give the same performances as always — full-blown intensity (complete with gaunt frame, rotting teeth and a bald spot) for the former; eager-to-please, wide-eyed wonderment for the latter. In doing so, the actors confirm that we’re watching a cookie-cutter, sweat-stained tearjerker. Besides, hasn’t Wahlberg been down this road before with the football drama “Invincible”?
“Invincible” also featured performances that possessed a soul; everything in “The Fighter” reeks of formula and indifference. It turns out that for all of his cleverness and verve, Russell doesn’t work well with emotions. And for a movie like “The Fighter,” an inspirational movie about an athletic underdog, that’s a fatal flaw.
Rating: W W
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