The Fighter (2010) ***½ 5.

Disregard all that you have heard about Amy Adams (Charlene Fleming) and Melissa Leo (Alice Ward) as great supporting roles for it is Christian Bale (Dickie Eklund) who steals the show in ‘The Fighter’. The Fighter is a good film but at times you feel that it is stunted in a way i.e. there is something missing. It is hard to pinpoint at first but you slowly come to the realization that the film is more about Dickie than about Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg) who is a former welterweight champion and who the story is supposed to be based on. You will come to the same realization when an hour is passed and there is an airing of a documentary that features Dickie as a down and out fighter who has been ensnared by the influence of crack which precipitates his decline on the scale that measures glory or success in an individual. The film opens with Dickie being filmed and he believes that it is a means to highlight to people that he is on the rise again. The idea of his glory stems from a fight he had with Sugar Ray Leonard in 1978 where he supposedly knocks him down. There is an interesting debate in the film about whether Sugar Ray slipped or he was actually knocked down. That issue is resolved by the end but you have a chance to decide for yourself when watching the clips from the film’s opening or when Dickie tries to re-enact that moment of Sugar ray’s fall in his mind while he is high on crack. The film succeeds because of Dickie because as the film progresses and the trials of Dickie take a toll on his family the emotion within you begins to creep up. It does not explode as it did while watching a film like ‘Rocky’ but I became aware of my sympathy for Dickie. If the film had been about him it would have been more effective because Mickey, who the film is to be about, spends most of the film trying to extricate himself from his brother’s shadow. Dickie is a mentor to his brother having influenced Mickey to begin boxing.  It should have been that Christian Bale should have been the main lead alongside Mark Wahlberg. In my mind if I disregard a list of the cast or who is billed as the lead I unconsciously see Christian Bale as an actor in a leading role. This would obviously not be the case if it was not for the documentary and that the scenes with all the emotional weight involve him.

Mark Wahlberg as Mickey does get sufficient screen time but without Dickie he does not offer any energy on his own. In films where there is a strong leading role and a strong supporting role it normally takes the film to new heights i.e. if you disregard screenplay and so forth. They both feed off of one another but the actor in the leading role exudes something that differs fundamentally from the supporting role which is why there is conflict. This does not happen sufficiently in this film which is why it feels stunted. When Mickey does triumph in this film and wins the welterweight title you do not get the impression that he has done it on his own but because he was simply goaded by others; in other words there was no independent factor within him that determines whether he succeeds or not. I say that you do not get an impression because it is there but the filmmakers could have highlighted it some more. It is clear that his character is one that loves to be shepherded rather than be the shepherd. That is how his character is presented. If it is not the influence of Dickie there is his mother, Alice and his girlfriend, Charlene who feel that because they know what is best for him that is how his life should be. His girlfriend Charlene is the counterpoint to his family who set up fights for him that does not seem to be advancing his career any further. His girlfriend shows him a new path where his independence would only be guaranteed if he is independent from his family which are mostly female. His mother on the other hand repudiates the possibility that Mickey should be independent of his family. I like how the influence of Mickey's family is delineated in the film because if i do discuss it there is a clear structure. Firstly it is clear that it is not only Mickey who has been silenced but his father, George Ward (Jack Mcgee). There is a scene where Alice throws pots on him and he seems powerless. That was a hilarious scene. There is another one where he gets knocked over by Dickie and his wife seems unconcerned but more concerned about Dickie. If you miss those instances you do not understand the film particularly the most important one where Alice is talking to the filmmakers of the documentary that features Dickie and outlines the family structure and her legacy of marriage and divorce that sees her raising 9 children. It is not only Mickey that is an outcast but his father who marries Alice after she has been through several husbands and encounters a large family with most of the members disloyal to him. It is no surprise that it is with his father by his side that Mickey meets Charlene and introduces him to a new management team. The father can sympathise with Mickey because the entire family structure is not very welcoming to Mickey who is probably the youngest of the bunch and will therefore always be seen as the outcast trying to fit in rather than be recognised for his own achievements or being a natural fit. Film lovers should check out ‘The Godfather’ and see if they can identify similarities with Tom Hagen, the consigliere, who is not brother by blood. It is because of this why the mother pays more attention to Dickie than to Mickey because she normally expects Mickey to look up to Dickie. I should note that Mickey is a 31 year old man and Dickie is probably only 9 years older. When a man reaches thirty he should be making a name for himself rather than living in the shadow of others. It is because of this weight why Mickey seems stunted in the film and why he expresses certain character traits akin to an adolescent.  I would not be surprised to learn that his mother was the one instrumental in calling him Mickey in likeness of his brother Dickie (I really do not like repeating this name over and over).

The adolescent traits he expresses are quite clear. He is not a very technical fighter or does not respond well at times to technical expertise which requires some amount of discipline. You therefore see him at odds with some of the advice that is being dished out to him. There are the techniques he learns from his brother and those of his new management team when he eventually leaves the influence of his family. This tension comes to a head in the final fight where he is able to win of his own accord rather than fight according to the plans of others. I believe this is where the filmmakers went wrong in documenting Mickey’s story. When he first meets Charlene he describes his boxing style to her: he is a brawler. A brawler normally trades blow for blow and so even if he does knock you down normally you would probably have given him a broken nose or a swollen eye. Rocky, for instance, was a brawler who knew how to take a beating whereas his opponents were more technically adept. Mickey explains to Charlene further that he wants to be more like a boxer i.e. he would be more technically adept so if an opponent has a weak spot you try and exploit it. As he explains you hit the opponent in the face enough so he has to guard his face which would leave his body exposed and then you go for the body and so on. What the filmmakers should have done was to actually show a fight where Mickey uses his brawling technique. This would have occurred more likely at the beginning and we would see the crew, which would more than likely include his brother, discussing his technique etc. The filmmakers would have illustrated his point by having him lose this match that would open the film. This is what happened with Rocky. They opened the film with rocky fighting underground with a not very interesting opponent (spider Rico). Even though he wins people still call him a bum.  This opening scene was to highlight, simultaneously,  how low Rocky was as a boxer and as a human being and contrasts with the heights he was to reach by challenging for the World heavy weight title.  It is because this is absent why you miss the triumph in the final fight in this film ‘The Fighter’ where Mickey eventually holds the world welterweight title. He does resort to his brawling technique in the fight but probably in a more modified way based on his technical training. A casual film viewer will then suppose that he suddenly got the balls to start lashing out and this was why he won. They should have contrasted this with how far he had come from being a simple brawler.  The filmmakers erred by featuring Dickie in the film’s opening act as opposed to documenting the rise of Mickey Ward.

There are other signs to look out for when trying to get a sense of Mickey’s character. There is a hilarious scene, for instance, where he takes Charlene to the movies. Before they go in two film viewers from behind comment on how exquisite the cinematography is supposed to be. In Mickey’s mind: ‘what cinematography?’ During the film he (the only person) falls into a deep sleep and this is one indicator that he is not technically adept which equates to a lack of discipline. Charlene did seemed pretty interested in the film but compromises and tries to acknowledge, for his sake, that the film was not all that.  The screenwriters did not highlight this so that you would laugh (only) they highlighted this to reveal his character which is why it is funny.

The influence of his brother is paramount in this film and it is this relationship that accounts for the most tension onscreen. It all adds weight to the premise: How does one escape the legacy of another? How do you measure what this person has achieved and compare it with your own accomplishments? Glory is relative. The glory Dickie revels in was that he challenged for the title but that was it he only challenged. He revels in this glory to the point of paranoia and the people of the town also see it as some form of glory based on the belief that the town is not so renowned. He certainly paved a path for Mickey which is why Mickey is prepared to follow him along the same path that led to his destruction. This was the reason for his ill advised match up with a middle weight where he is pummelled. You get a sense that Dickie encountered these sort of ill advised matchups during his career and was beaten and stung relentlessly to the point where fighting Sugar ray Leonard seemed like an overwhelming achievement. This is what happens when you are coming from an absolute bottom and are trying to rise above. When you are coming from the gutter how you measure success becomes relative. It is clear that Dickie (I do not like writing this name repeatedly) did not rise above to the point where he can be contented with passing on the reigns to his kid brother. He still aspires to go further although he fails to acknowledge that he is passed his prime. This is why at the end of the film they make clear that after Mickey   won the championship he still had some other gruelling fights with other contenders and he was after a couple years finally able to earn a 6 digit salary. It goes to show that for Mickey this was not his crowning point in life. One of the great human tragedies since the dawn of civilisation is when someone never gets to achieve what they set out to do. It sometimes reduces them to skeletons, wraiths and imbeciles. They are often forgotten in the midst of their longing for that goal that slips further and further away particularly if others trample over them and actually achieve that glory they so desperately yearn for. They normally hold it to their bosom until death unless some vital change extracts another positive energy they can pursue. Let us backtrack to Raging Bull where Lamotta who is a middleweight makes clear to his brother Joey that because he is a middleweight he will never fight the best which are normally in the heavyweight class. In ‘Hoop Dreams’ the two youngsters never do reach the NBA and would have been reduced to ordinary persons had it not been for that very documentary. It all depends on how you measure success in the end because there are those who have it all but are still yearning for that peace of mind which will make clear that 'Yes this is the end'. This would explain why they had so many Rockys and as Rocky himself says in Rocky 1: even if he does not beat Apollo Creed he just wants to go the distance with the champ because no one has ever gone the distance with the champ. This is more important to him because seeing that he is coming from the gutter if he gets beaten and stung to the point where he writhing in ignominy on the floor people would have expected that of him because of where he is coming from. If he can just go the distance then people will see what he is really made of. Themes like this were completely absent from ‘The Fighter’ when documenting the rise of Mickey Ward

On a last not the performances are good all round. The character of Mickey ward is stunted in comparison with Dickie but Mark Wahlberg does exude the persona he is known for in Hollywood when his character is given some means to explode. The performances of the two female leads are competent. Amy Adams as Charlene is pretty good particularly in the scene where Mickey’s family, which are all female except Dickie and his son, comes to her doorstep and there is a confrontation. Christian and Bale and Adams share a poignant scene towards the end after both assess their shortcomings.  Aside from that she is good but not stellar and her character is naturally hysterical by nature because she too is a college dropout (Poor Mickey but he should be contented knowing he has achieved sufficiently). Melissa Leo is good as well; the wear and tear in her expressions are sound particularly a tender scene with Christian Bale which shows how battered she really is despite the rough facade.  The star however is Christian Bale. He plays the character as true as he possibly can and sometimes you will miss that it is him which is always a sign of a great performance. He will be nominated for Best supporting role by the academy.

Recommended Films with the same premise: Rocky 1, Raging Bull, Sideways, Hoop dreams and The Godfather when discussing issues with family.