The Fighter

Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams. Dir. David O. Russel (I Heart Huckabees, Three Kings). Writers: Scott Silver (8 Mile, The Mod Squad), Paul Tamasy (Air Bud), Eric Johnson, Keith Dorrington.

What a set THIS could have been! The authors of the two most famous Hollywood dummy-spits of noughties together. Betcha nothing happened. Betcha every time Christian Bale and David O. Russell got hot under the collar Mark Wahlberg's inherent, over-powering, all-consuming niceness stopped anything interesting happening at all.

IMDB says this is the story of the early years of boxer Irish Mickey Ward and his trainer brother, in the 1980s, but the trailer's pretty clear that it's much more about the boxer's comeback in his early 30s, which happened around the turn of the millennium. I'm going with the trailer. Has imdb.com turned into Wikipedia?

This looks pretty good, given that there are fewer and fewer great boxing stories, now that the sport has gone to pieces (name one great character since Tyson. Can't, can you?) Wahlberg's usually good, Christian Bale is generally good with a strong director, and David O. Russell is definitely that. Three Kings was great, even if it's more than a decade ago now, and I Heart Huckabees wasn't bad either. I don't know much about the writers, but David O. Russell generally puts his own clear mark on every script he shoots - although I notice he doesn't have a writer credit on this one (which means nothing - the way the Writers' Guild of America allocates writing credits can be mind-boggling convoluted and unfair).

Anyway, this looks fine, I guess, if maybe a little welterweight compared to the heavyweights of Raging Bull, Rocky and Cinderella Man (which I liked, despite the Ron Howardness of it), but that's fine. The big question is always "is this worth the price of the ticket and the two hours of my life?" and I'm sure in Russell's hands it's just that, without causing any earthquakes.

Yeah, sure, why not? Go on then. Fine.*



*This is good - the majority of movies aren't worth the money. Or the time.

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