It has taken Mark Wahlberg five years to bring the underdog story of welterweight boxer Micky Ward to the screen in "The Fighter" and it was worth the wait.
Originally set to star Wahlberg and Matt Damon under the direction of Darren Aronofsky until budget concerns derailed the production. So Damon was forced to drop out due to other film obligations and replaced by Brad Pitt. Pitt and Aronofsky leave the project when the budget is slashed in half. Wahlberg recruits David O. Russell who directed the actor in "Three Kings" and Christian Bale. All in all things couldn't have worked out better.
Russell, shooting almost entirely in Lowell on a fast 33-day schedule and tight $11 million budget, has made a boxing film that concerns itself not only with personal glory but
with family feuds and crack addiction and delusion and the necessity of facing brutal truths and looking people you love in the eye and telling them they're history unless they clean up their act...this is what real families do, and why this movie feels so real every step of the way.
The acting is great from every player, especially from Bale (he's got the big showy part and is a lock for a supporting actor nod from the Academy) but also Wahlberg (he is the film's anchor,) Amy Adams (who is able to shed that goody two-shoes image she's been saddled with from her performances in "Junebug"
and "Enchanted"
) and fierce Melissa Leo as
the headstrong mother of Walhlberg, Bale and six of the grungtiest-looking blue-collar sisters you've ever seen in your life, let alone a film -- they all look like they've been eating chili dogs while knocking back shots of Jack Daniels since they were ten.
Ultimately, "The Fighter" moved beyond the cliches of the boxing genre. It is a film that could have been over-dramatized and heavy-handed had it been put in another director's hands, but Russell and his cast create a very specific atmosphere and set a particular mood that lends the film a sense of realism.
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