Well I think that I lied a little bit. I said that I might be doing a book post and I had every intention of doing so until my Best Picture list project got back on track. See I went to go see "The Fighter" today with a friend. And so I believe that I need to talk about that and then tomorrow I am going to see the last two on the list and so the next one will probably be a movie post as well. But the one after that will have something to do with books. I am almost positive.
Moving on. "The Fighter" which is written by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, and Eric Johnson and directed by David O. Russell was an interesting film. Starring Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, and Amy Adams it is a movie about a fighter trying to figure out how to balance what he wants with what his family wants. Mark Wahlberg plays Micky Ward, a boxer who's crack addicted brother, Dicky Eklund (played by Christian Bale), is his trainer and his mother, Alice (played by Melissa Leo), is his manager. Dicky used to be somewhat of a name in the boxing world due to his knockout of Sugar Ray Leonard.
The whole movie begins with HBO making a documentary about crack addiction and using Dicky as their main subject. While this is happening Dicky is training Micky for a sort of come back fight for Micky. This is supposed to be the big change for Micky. He is going to win the fight, get some good money, some recognition, and be able to buy a bigger apartment so that his daughter can stay with him. It was his big chance. However when he gets to the fight he finds that his perfect opponent has the flu and despite his wishes has to fight an opponent above his weight class and with at least 20 pounds on Micky. Needless to say Micky gets beat pretty badly.
Things begin to change. He starts looking at his life differently, he starts dating Charlene, played by Amy Adams, who truly beileves that he can be a great fighter but that his family is holding him back. Dicky can't get his act together long enough to actually show up anywhere on time and Alice, Micky and Dicky's mom, doesn't care about anything but what Dicky says. Finally things come to a head and Dicky goes to jail. Micky then gets an opportunity to be managed and trained and really given a chance at greatness. As long as he gives up working with his brother and mother. But his brother, who gets clean in jail, knows fighting and knows Micky better then anyone so Dicky finds a way to help during a difficult fight and this reminds Micky just how important his family is.
The movie was good. It was tough to watch at times and amusing at others. It was filled with a dark humor and a touching sadness that was rooted in reality. I thought that Christian Bale was fantastic as Dicky. Amy Adams and Melissa Leo absolutely deserve their nominations and I found the cinematography made the whole thing more gritty and real where it had to be. I see why the three above mentioned names are up for best supporting roles. I'm not sure yet if Christian Bale will be able to take it away from Geoffrey Rush but he deserves the nod. I found Mark Wahlberg to be mediocre compared to everyone else. He had no real depth to him as an actor. The character was rich with struggle and pain and pride and Wahlberg just wasn't able to grasp the levels of the guy.
I give the movie a 7 out of 10 whatevers. Despite Mark Wahlberg's mediocre performance the rest of the cast was worth watching, the story itself was a nice one to bring to light, and the direction and the cinematography made the movie worth sitting through as well. It was a tad long, it had a few too many badly scored montages that could have been taken out or cut. Other than that the movie was good. I would reccommend it.
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