The Fighter

I think David O. Russell's The Fighter focuses on the wrong fighter. The character that this movie should be about is Dicky Eklund. He's played by Christian Bale in a performance that is mesmerizing, powerful, joyful, and heartbreaking. It's one of the best performances of the year, and one of the best characters I've come across in a movie this year. He was once a rising professional fighter, and even beat Sugar Ray Leonard in the ring at the peak of his career. Now, he's a faded crack addict with a son from a faded relationship, delusions of a return to glory (he thinks the camera crew following him around is filming a documentary about his comeback, when it's really about crack addiction), and a desire to see his younger half-brother become a better man than he ever was, has been, or will be.

That half-brother is Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg). He grew up idolizing Dicky, who taught him everything he knows about boxing. He's tolerant when Dicky does not show up to help him train for an upcoming fight, and looks the other way when Dicky comes stumbling out the back window of a crack house, not wanting their mother to see him, even though she's standing right there. Mickey has been trying to break into the professional boxing circuit for a while, but has not had much luck, thanks to a string of embarrassing losses. His career is almost a total family affair, with his brother training him, and his mother, Alice (Melissa Leo) managing him and booking fights from the kitchen in her house. Mickey comes from a close-knit, but dysfunctional family that could be politely described as "white trash". The brother's a motormouth drug addict, the mom's a chain-smoker so demanding of her son, she would give some notorious "stage mothers" a lesson in how to be controlling, and Mickey's seven sisters all look like sleazy rejects from an equally sleazy reality dating show.

The film itself (based on a true story) is about how Mickey broke free of his controlling family, and starts to live his own life and career. It all starts when he meets a kind-hearted but sharp-tongued bar waitress named Charlene (the always-reliable Amy Adams). As she falls in love with Mickey, she starts to try to convince him that he should go after what he wants, not what others want from him. This obviously does not sit well with Alice, who sees Charlene's actions as trying to steal her son away from her. Mickey does start to go after what he wants, and tries to make his family understand, which is hard. As his career grows, we are supposed to stand up and cheer as the "nobody" from the small Boston blue collar town has a shot at the championship. Never heard that plot before in a movie, have you?

The problem with The Fighter is not that we've heard the story before, but that I never cared about Mickey. He's too passive, and disappears too much into the background to the point that I almost didn't know why the movie was following him. There was no moment in the movie for me where I truly got behind him, or felt he was making a huge accomplishment. He's just there up on the screen, surrounded by much more interesting characters. I have nothing against Wahlberg's performance here. He's a fine actor, and he's fine as Mickey. I just could never shake the feeling that a movie following Dicky would have been much more emotional and powerful. He carries all the human interest in the movie. When his brother won't stand up for him after a run-in with police which sends him to jail, he feels betrayed. His struggle to become clean and sober is not just for himself, but also so he can help his brother reach the top, and so he can be with his son again. There's a lot of workable material here, and Bale's award-worthy performance sells every moment when he's up on screen.

Too bad Mickey can't do that. He has potential. There's a subplot about how he's fighting so he can earn money to buy a bigger place, so he can have more visitation with his young daughter from a failed marriage. Once this is established, the movie almost seems to forget about it. We see the daughter and the ex-wife in a couple more scenes, but they never become a driving force in the drama that unfolds. They're treated as a plot device. So, what are we left with? Well, there are a number of stand-out performances to be sure. Besides Bale, Melissa Leo and Amy Adams make for engaging rivals for Mickey's heart and mind. Their struggle for him should make for powerful drama, but the movie never finds the right tone.

The Fighter just never really clicked with me. It's obviously well made, and has a lot of strong performances to its credit, but I felt like I was being kept constantly at a distance. I never found myself truly rooting for Mickey, not even during the fight scenes, which are surprisingly lacking in tension and suspense. And since I didn't feel anything for the main character either in or outside the ring, the movie just kind of sits there. Sure, it's well made, but what's the point if it just sits there?

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