The Fighter

When did Christmas week get to be such a bummer for movies? In a pack of bad openings, it was hard to choose which lame movie to see. So The Fighter got moved up on the list due to the movie's award nominations. The boxing movie centers around two real boxing brothers, their career rise and fall, personal highs (of the crack kind) and lows (of the same) and realization of the goal.  If that sounds long and rambling, then it matches the movie.  The storyline seemed to take place over either 1 year or 15 years. Since everyone always looked the same and dates were never given with the exception of jail time, I couldn't even track time. Doesn't matter.

Synopsis for those of you, like me, who don't know or want to know the boxing world:  Young Micky (Wahlberg) idolizes his big brother Dicky (Bale). Dicky was a boxer of some fame and then turned to the world of crack. Their mother is also their manager and turns a blind eye to reason and drug addiction. A fascinating sideshow of 7 sisters provides us with the poster and wikipedia entry for Dysfunctional Family and to me was more entertaining than the actual boxing story.

So a bunch of fights later in which Micky gets beat up every time because his brother is on drugs and his mother clueless and we're about halfway through the movie. Put in the love interest, more drama, more boxing and the movie is over.

Who liked the movie - the man behind us did.  He was in his 70's and seemed to actually know the story since he added comments throughout the movie. His wife, not so much enjoying the movie and following it less than me.  I can see why Christian Bale has been nominated for awards, he ruled the movie and nailed the crazy fighter drug addicted role.

Who is this movie for?  (1) Boxing fans & (2) Wahlberg and Bale fans. What was good about it? Mondo and I had at least 15 minutes of conversation about The Fighter as we left the theater. That's better than walking out and forgetting you even saw a movie. If you're not in category 1 or 2 above then you'll want to save this movie for later.

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