The Fighter

In my review of The King's Speech, I noted that I would reserve judgement on this year's Best Supporting Actor race between Geoffrey Rush and Christian Bale until after I had seen The Fighter.  Well, now that I've seen The Fighter, I can say for sure that it's not even a contest:  it's Christian Bale, all the way.  And considering what an acting showcase this hugely entertaining film is, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the only award it wins.

The Fighter is the true story of junior welterweight champion "Irish" Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), whose rise to boxing stardom is threatened by his horribly dyfunctional, overbearing family.  Chief among his obstacles is his older half-brother/trainer Dickie Ecklund (Christian Bale), a former boxing champ himself who threw away his own promising future to a crack cocaine addiction.  Adding to this mess is their manipulative mother Alice (Melissa Leo), who's not only totally oblivious to her favorite son Dickie's self-destructive behavior, but so clueless as how to manage Micky's career that she's about to run that into the ground too.

The story as a whole is fairly predictable:  Micky is a nice enough guy with some talent, he's spent a lifetime in the shadow of his brother, and he needs to get the hell away from his family if he wants any shot at a future.  And with the help of his no-nonsense girlfriend Charlene (Amy Adams), he's finally able to do that, albeit with some major obstacles along the way.  Even if you've never heard of Micky Ward before seeing the movie (which I hadn't), you pretty much know where this movie is going. 

But it's a really good movie, and the acting is phenomenal.  Bale is definitely the standout.  His character is such a pathetic mess - a guy who once faced Sugar Ray Leonard in a boxing ring but who now wanders around his hometown oblivious that the HBO documentary crew following him around town is making a movie about his downfall from drugs and not his never-gonna-happen comeback.  Melissa Leo compliments that perfectly as their mother, who's just painfully clueless about everything and just adores this disaster of a human being.  Amy Adams plays this hard-nosed ray of light as Micky's girlfriend, who's not intimidated by his family (in hilarious fashion, in a few scenes) and helps him learn to break away.

This is the third film Mark Wahlberg has worked with director David O. Russell on, Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees being the first, and they work well together.  Compared to everyone else, Micky is probably the least interesting character of the film, but you still felt for him and you still rooted for him...he looked terrific too.  I loved how they mixed in video footage of the boxing scenes with the actual film, it felt like you were really watching actual footage of the fight.

I'm still going with Black Swan as my favorite of the Oscar frontrunners so far, but The Fighter is a good one too.