December 10, 2010 -- There are a lot of inspirational sports movies, like “Secretariat” and “The Blind Side,” and “The Fighter” fits into that general category, but it is a bit different because it is constructed a bit like a documentary film, complete with a documentary film crew following the fighters around on screen, a bit of a fourth wall violation. It is an odd way of doing a drama like this, but it works. It is based on a true story.

The central characters in the film are two brothers, both professional boxers, Micky Ward (played by Mark Wahlberg of “The Other Guys”) and Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale of “The Dark Knight”). Micky has long lived in the shadow of his older half brother, who is a boxing legend in Lowell, Mass. But now Dicky has become a crack addict and has become a very unreliable trainer. When Dicky tries a comeback an HBO documentary film crew follows him around. What Dicky thinks is a documentary about himself as a fighter who once went the distance with the Great Sugar Ray Leonard, is actually a documentary about drug addiction.

Micky meets and falls in love with Charlene Fleming (Amy Adams of “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”) a pretty, but very tough and smart bartender. He becomes convinced that he needs to change his management and training if he is to get ahead in his career. His mother, Alice Ward (Melissa Leo of “Frozen River”) has been his manager and Dicky has been his trainer. When his brother ends up in prison, that's the last straw, and Micky makes the change. Under his new manager, Sal Lonano (Frank Renzulli) Micky starts getting some better fight match ups and starts winning. He had lost four fights in a row prior to switching managers, including one mismatch fighting a man 20 pounds heavier than himself.

Micky finds himself overmatched in one fight and must abandon his plan and use the tactics his brother taught him. His brother's tactics work. When Dicky gets out of prison, Micky must decide if he will once again put his trust in his brother, who has let him down so many times before.

The entire cast of actors is excellent in this film. The boxing scenes (some are recreated almost exactly from the original fights) are very convincing. Even scenes from the original HBO documentary about Dicky's drug addiction, are recreated with painstaking accuracy in this film. There is a very amusing Greek Chorus of women, apparently all relatives, who make comments on much of what is happening in the film. These women apparently have nothing better to do with their lives than be hangers on, observing the Ward family. Several real life boxers play themselves in the film, including Sugar Ray Leonard and Micky O'Keefe. At the end of the film, over the credits, the real Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund appear together, acting very much like the actors who play them in the film. The film rates a B.

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Copyright © 2010 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
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