THE FIGHTER

This was an absolutely wonderful movie. I was totally transported to Lowell, Massachusetts and the world of the Ward brothers. I cried and cheered during fight scenes and laughed during some of the confrontations between Micky's mom and his girlfriend. The dialogue was great; witty and real sounding - like 'normal' people would talk.
And all the actors kept their Massachusetts accent throughout the movie.

This is the story of Micky Ward, a boxer who won several welter weight titles and his half-brother, Dicky, who was his trainer and who had also been a boxer. Dicky is also a crack addict. Christian Bale played Dicky perfectly. He combined the edgy, tweaky, jittery aspect of an addict along with his innate charm and glibness with the discipline and strength of a former boxer. Bale was mesmerizing in all his scenes. Because Dicky is usually always stoned, when a documentary crew from HBO starts filming him; he thinks its because he's going to stage a come-back. Dicky still partially inhabits the time when he knocked out Sugar Ray Leonard in the ring (or did Sugar Ray just trip?) But the filming crew is making a docu about crack addiction. The scene where Dicky realizes the intent of the movie is really heartbreaking; one of several scenes that was really emotional and poignant.

Micky was played by Mark Wahlberg who i think is a wooden actor; not as bad as keanu reeves but in that category. But because his role in this film was as the brother who lacked confidence, who was dependent on other people's opinions and who lacked the assertiveness and brouhaha of Dicky, Wahlberg did a fine job.

Melissa Leo played their mom; a bossy, manipulative, loudmouth who quite obviously favored Dicky over all her children; she also had 6 or 7 daughters.

The music was excellent and fit each scene.

Its a story about boxing (the fight scenes were very realistic), family, codependent relationships, loyalty, drug addiction, relationships - romantic and relative and expectations. It was not a Rocky-remake that's for sure.

Both bill and i rated it a 10.