The Fighter: Blu Ray review
The Fighter
Rating: R16
Released by Roadshow Entertainment
Based on a true story, Mark Wahlberg stars as Micky Ward, a boxer
who's living in the shadow of his older brother Dicky Eklund (a
wonderfully wiry and sparky, Golden Globe and Oscar award winning
Christian Bale.) Eklund is the pride of Lowell, Massachusetts; a
boxer who once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard, he's the celeb of
the working class town.
However, Eklund is racked with addiction to crack cocaine and is
dragging the family down - as well as his brother's hopes of
staging some kind of fighting revival. Plus along with the fearsome
matriarch of the nine strong family, Alice (a ferocious Golden
Globe and Oscar award winning Melissa Leo) in charge of their
careers, Micky is going nowhere fast.
So when Micky meets Amy Adams' Charlene, a local bartender college
drop out, a tender romance develops and Micky begins to start to
believe in himself and his ability again.
This is a knock out of a film which pulls no punches.
But it's the ensemble cast which gives this true story a human feel
and raise it well above the mire of a clichéd boxing
film.
Christian Bale is astoundingly good as Eklund, a sinewy frame
supporting a "can't take your eyes off him" performance. There's
energy and world class acting on show here as the small town hero
who was on the cusp of having it all but blows it for the cycle of
addiction.
Yet, while Bale's great, thanks to the sensible and restrained
direction of David O Russell, it doesn't detract from the rest of
the cast - specifically Mark Wahlberg, whose subtly underplayed
performance is the perfect antithesis to Bale's sparky energy. He's
an assured presence here and conveys the torment of realizing the
family's holding him back and the pain of having to try and make
that clean break.
Extras: Director, Filming the Fighter and deleted scenes
Rating: 9/10
