Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams
Directed by: David O’ Russell

So today, I decided to go see the movie, “The Fighter”. Finally saw it, and here is my review:

Plot/Synopsis: The movie tells the real life story of professional boxers, Dicky Ecklund (Christian Bale) and Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg). Dicky Ecklund is a retired boxer who’s last fight was against boxing legend, Sugar Ray Leonard. Dicky’s sparring partner, Micky Ward, dreams of becoming a fighter himself. At first, Micky trains on his own terms, he made a vow to never train with his half-brother, Dicky. Micky falls in love with a woman named, Charlene (Amy Adams), while his brother, Dicky falls into trouble with drugs, alcohol and serves some prison time. Micky continues to fight in matches and hopes to become welterweight champion.

I saw this movie because I like boxing films. I will always think the Rocky movies are the best boxing films, but “The Fighter” was a really good one. “The Fighter” was very similar to Rocky in a way. The film, “The Fighter” was shot in low budget cameras, the only big name stars in the film are obviously Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale and Amy Adams, but the rest of the cast were unknowns. This film have been getting nothing but positive reviews all over the place. I haven’t seen anything negative about the film. People were saying that Mark Wahlberg should get Best Actor for this role. To be honest with you, I didn’t think Mark Wahlberg’s acting in this movie was Oscar worthy. I was more impressed with Christian Bale’s acting. Throughout the film, I had my eye on Christian Bale the whole time, that’s how amazing he was. I’ve seen Christian in so many other films, but his acting has always been the same in other films, but not this one. Christian’s acting was so different in this movie, “The Fighter”. I’m willing to bet Christian rehearsed his ass off and did some acting coaching for this role. Mark is a good actor, don’t get me wrong, but if Christian wasn’t in this film, then the movie would be boring. Christian didn’t make this movie boring. He made it fun. So I think Christian will definitely get the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for this movie. I don’t even think Mark Wahlberg will get nominated for this one.

I thought the story was pretty intense and had some pretty emotional scenes. A few things I didn’t care for in the film was the Eklund brother’s mother, Alice, and the sisters wasn’t needed, but other than that, I loved the movie overall. The movie is taken place during the 70’s-80’s, back in the days when wireless phones, the internet, cell phones and flat screen TV’s weren’t around. So the film stayed true to that. Sugar Ray Leonard himself, made a cameo appearance in the film, yes, the real Sugar Ray. Amy Adams isn’t nude in the film but she does show a lot of cleavage and she does have one scene where she was wearing nothing but bra & panties. Amy’s acting in the film, was okay, but her performance is not Oscar worthy.

The fights were fun, realistic and made them believable. Is “The Fighter” the best movie of the year, 2010? It was really good, but definitely not the best of the year. I still have to see “True Grit” and “Tron 3D” sometime after Christmas. After I see those two films, then I’ll make my decision on what the best film of the year is.

Score for “The Fighter” = **** (4 stars as in “excellent”)

Kev