The Fighter (David O. Russell, 2010)

[James Mills]

Not sure why there isn't a thread for this film yet, but I certainly find it meritorious of its own after watching it tonight. Here are my thoughts:

O. Russell is always at his best when working with lower-middle class subjects, particularly in regards to his stage direction. Along the lines of Alexander Payne and Mike Leigh, he has the inherent knack of accurately imbuing their impulsions and inconsistencies to match their familial warmth. The Fighter excels in establishing this environment and its boundaries from the film's beginning, even if the characters are equally aggrandized at its onset.

Though such cliches are abundant, from the sanctified hero to the vilified family and the girlfriend in between (here disregarded oftentimes as little more than an exposition machine), the film largely succeeds at the hefty task of actually embracing these formulaic routines to backlight the passionate performances of its ensemble against the genre's admitted expectations. Outside of the mockingly pretty Wahlberg, who blatantly stands out from the defeated wrinkles of the town and its inhabitants, I can't imagine how the film could have been casted better. Though Wahlberg's looks and his accompanying heroic underscores are jarring, his performance is flawless and damn near compensates for their distractions.

Bale is equally engaging, creating a believable personality and struggle that accents his brother's own personality and struggle. In this sense, it is a wonder why the film isn't called The FighterS, as the audience is subjected to documentary-realism of handheld and HBO-esque filming (hooray for boxers actually defending punches in a boxing film for a change!) for both men equally. Like Social Network, it is this lifelike compassion and energy between the two leads that makes this film come to life. The Fighter is not only one of the best films of the year imo, but one of the best boxing films of all time and a must see for any sports fan.

[CSM126]

I would imagine the lack of a thread comes down to the film being unworthy of mention? Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe it's just me, but I found this movie to be rather bad. Wahlberg's character is too bland and lifeless, and the supporting characters are all vastly too repugnant and horrible, for anyone (or at least me and the bored audience I saw the film with) to honestly give a damn about this film. You can root for the schmuck or the sub-human beasts. Woo-hoo. I'll grant you this much: Christian Bale is quite excellent in his performance (and the movie probably should have focused solely on him), but he doesn't get enough to work with to redeem the film as a whole. And being excellent as a deadbeat drug using piece of shit will only get you so far without a strong supporting cast and a good script.

The screenplay is terribly weak, and based off of a weak story. At the end of the day this is the story of a low life crack addict who coaches his brother to boxing mediocrity with a couple of lucky punches. Pardon the pun, but this story doesn't have any punch. It's dull. I found no enjoyment in watching armies of white trash scream at each other like Jerry Springer guests, and frankly the boxing scenes are boring and poorly filmed. I get the idea that they were going for a sort of Million Dollar Baby story here, but MDB had a heroine who was good and decent and spunky, and a fascinating, fleshed-out cast of supporting characters who really added something to the story. It was also helmed by a great director with a cohesive vision, whereas The Fighter is directed by David O. Russell, which is about as good as being a boat with no rudder captained by a three year-old.

I'll be honest: The Fighter isn't awful, and in a year with titles like The Last Airbender, The Last Exorcism, and Devil, it's hardly the worst thing I've seen. But is the only movie that bored me to the point that I considered walking out of without feeling guilty for doing so. (I stayed, by the way, but I don't see why I bothered, because frankly I just didn't care how this thing turned out)

Again, maybe it's just me.

[Jeff]

It's not a matter of the film being "meritorious" or "worthy" of a thread or not. Russell is frequently an interesting director, and there are plenty of films far worse under discussion, but threads are not awarded as prizes. I suppose that no one has felt they had anything particularly interesting to say about it yet. Anyone who feels that they do is always welcome to start a thread about a film.

For me, it's Russell's weakest film. I've always felt that his strength was mostly as a writer. He has a gift for structure and for bringing humanity to offbeat stories and characters that would otherwise be unlikeable. We only see glimpses of that in The Fighter though, because it's not Russell's script. He's saddled with a familiar Palooka story that, despite its supposed veracity, was both too sentimental and too predictable to make me ever care much about anything that happened.

Wahlberg, who is usually at his best with Russell, is mostly bland and lifeless here. The funky bunch that makes up the supporting cast just about salvages the film. Russell's greatest strength behind the camera is being a strong motivator of actors (apparently through sometimes dubious means). Christian Bale and Amy Adams turn in stellar performances. Bale's got the best supporting actor award locked up. It's a pretty startling transformation, and he dominates any scene he's in, even if he's just standing in the corner. I liked Adams really playing against type too. She clearly has fun trying out a role where "sweet" is not a descriptor. I found her character the most interesting in the film -- one I wish we got to know better. Melissa Leo is very strong too, though her character chafes a bit. I think it's due to both the personality and stock-character familiarity. She and her motley crew of Bahston-harpy daughters are really the only instances where I felt Russell's touch. What they lack in /r/ sounds, they make up for with spittle-laden brio.

It's not a bad film. There are several strong character moments throughout, and watching Bale, Adams, and Leo show off their considerable chops can be lots of fun. Outside of those performances though, I didn't find much to care about in a story I felt like I'd seen several times before.

[James Mills]

I would imagine the lack of a thread comes down to the film being unworthy of mention? Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe it's just me, but I found this movie to be rather bad. Wahlberg's character is too bland and lifeless, and the supporting characters are all vastly too repugnant and horrible, for anyone (or at least me and the bored audience I saw the film with) to honestly give a damn about this film. You can root for the schmuck or the sub-human beasts. Woo-hoo. I'll grant you this much: Christian Bale is quite excellent in his performance (and the movie probably should have focused solely on him), but he doesn't get enough to work with to redeem the film as a whole. And being excellent as a deadbeat drug using piece of shit will only get you so far without a strong supporting cast and a good script.

Yeah, as I said in the OP, the film sanctifies Ward to unbelievable ends while vilifying most of the secondary characters. However, for me this is expected in sports films, and I certainly believe that O. Russell was well aware of the mold he was working with. In this sense, I found this recognition and acceptance of these traditions to be certified from the onset of the film, as the characters are larger than life from the very first shot. With that in mind, I feel like I was able to accept this world as O. Russell's own, a fantastic one that is told through the rainbow memories of a sports story. By taking the plot as almost tongue in cheek then, I enjoyed it as a good director's practice in a genre that is usually void of quality.

The screenplay is terribly weak, and based off of a weak story. At the end of the day this is the story of a low life crack addict who coaches his brother to boxing mediocrity with a couple of lucky punches. Pardon the pun, but this story doesn't have any punch. It's dull. I found no enjoyment in watching armies of white trash scream at each other like Jerry Springer guests, and frankly the boxing scenes are boring and poorly filmed. I get the idea that they were going for a sort of Million Dollar Baby story here, but MDB had a heroine who was good and decent and spunky, and a fascinating, fleshed-out cast of supporting characters who really added something to the story. It was also helmed by a great director with a cohesive vision, whereas The Fighter is directed by David O. Russell, which is about as good as being a boat with no rudder captained by a three year-old.

I strongly disagree with this assessment. Ward was more than simply a mediocre boxer (though I guess one could argue that the film did a poor effort of proving this), and the story itself is legitimately unlike any other in boxing history. Moreover, I appreciated how factually the film followed historical events; Ward really was a slow starter and known for his miraculous heart and comebacks, and his fights were taken shot for shot from his actual boxing matches. Dickie really was featured in the documentary "High On Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell" and again scenes of him getting high were taken shot for shot from the documentary (as were his friends). Moreover, the secondary characters were mostly accurate as well, with his mom really being their starstruck manager, always more interested in interviews than Ward and Dickie. It is also true that she refused to acknowledge Dickie's drug problems even after his countless arrests, and her actions and prose in the documentary are surprisingly similar to the exaggerated movie character's.

And I just can't imagine how anyone could hold genre conventions against The Fighter while saying anything good about Million Dollar Baby. I find Eastwood to be a very unsubstantive and trite director with little vision outside of cohesion itself, as MDB shamelessly ripped from every stereotype imaginable in a story that is waaaaaay more rosy cheeked than this one. The wise old black janitor, the stern trainer with a hidden heart of gold, the retarded guy who punches the bag all day but doesn't improve, the heroine with a family that is ten times as repugnant and unbelievably evil (with not a single one having any redeeming qualities whatsoever while The Fighter emphasized the family's love for Ward and loyalty to their blood) as anything in The Fighter. I mean, if one is to criticize The Fighter for anything involving unbelievability in regards to its polemic characters, I would argue that it at least has many moments of verisimilar dialogue and passionate interaction between its larger than life characters. I'd also argue that we are never allotted that kind of performance or interaction in MDB, and that MDB's utter fictitiousness makes the story much more unbearable and not worthy of any moral recollections while The Fighter presents a story that is accurate as well as physically and mentally inspirational.

edit: As you said, in a year of disappointment after disappointment, I personally found The Fighter to be one of the few pleasant surprises for me. I went in with basically no expectations of enjoyment, so perhaps that contributed to my appreciation of its acting and plot. I find the story to be fascinating in itself, and, being a boxer myself, I can really appreciate its historical accuracy and efforts to not glorify the battles within the ring.

[Mr Sausage]

Ward was more than simply a mediocre boxer (though I guess one could argue that the film did a poor effort of proving this), and the story itself is legitimately unlike any other in boxing history.

Yeah, it's a shame the movie seems to have given the impression Ward was a bum, because his first fight with Arturo Gatti is considered one of the greatest matches in boxing history. Everyone should see this for some proof.

[James Mills]

Yeah, it's a shame the movie seems to have given the impression Ward was a bum, because his first fight with Arturo Gatti is considered one of the greatest matches in boxing history. Everyone should see this for some proof.

I still think round 9 of Ward - Gotti 1 is my favorite round ever... the whole trilogy is amazing.

["membrillo"]

Ward was more than simply a mediocre boxer (though I guess one could argue that the film did a poor effort of proving this), and the story itself is legitimately unlike any other in boxing history.

Yeah, it's a shame the movie seems to have given the impression Ward was a bum, because his first fight with Arturo Gatti is considered one of the greatest matches in boxing history. Everyone should see this for some proof.

I have not seen the movie but...

That is not correct. Ward was a mediocre boxer. At best he is recognized as having been a decent club fighter. He was never recognized as anything more than that. When the matchmakers made Gatti - Ward it was a fight that HBO approved because of Wards performance versus Emmanuel Augustus (who at that time was named Emmanuel Burton - he later met his biological father and took his surname) and his reputation for going rounds.

Gatti had come off a decent win over Terron Millet due to the fact that Millet was shot and had no legs left. However, with Gatti having just hired a new trainer (Buddy McGirt) and looking good in KO'ing Millet, Main Events knew they could try to revitalize his career at 140 and do some decent gates in the northeast. They did not expect the first fight to be what it was.

Last, none of the Gatti - Ward fights are considered one of the greatest matches in boxing history. They are considered a great rivalry because they brought out the best in each other due to their styles at that point in Gattis career. Just looking at the past decade - what are considered some of the greatest matches would be the likes of Jose Luis Castillo - Diego Corrales I, any of the first three Rafa Marquez - Israel Vazquez fights, James Toney - Vassily Jirov. These are guys who not only threw down hard. They did it at the highest skill level.

[Mr Sausage]

So, Gatti - Ward 1 isn't considered one of the greatest matches in boxing history because other fights are also considered some of the greatest matches in boxing history?

Still, probably should have said "one of the best matches of the decade," which is probably more accurate. Nevertheless, the ninth round of their first bout has, I believe, been called among the best rounds in boxing history; and the fight in general is highly regarded by a lot of people. Your post doesn't actually call any of this into dispute.

[James Mills]

So what parts of our statements are incorrect exactly? The bout has consistently been called one of the best matches ever and Ward was not just a "mediocre" fighter; "mediocre" fighters don't earn Ring Magazine's Fight of the Year three years in a row. He never won a world championship, but he was a consistent top ten light-welterweight from '98-'02 and renown for his exciting style; far from "mediocre".

["membrillo"]

So, Gatti - Ward 1 isn't considered one of the greatest matches in boxing history because other fights are also considered some of the greatest matches in boxing history?

No. There are fights that are considered as "one of the greatest fights" in his boxing history but Ward - Gatti I is not one of them. The vast majority of the fights regarded as such were fought before the 90's when there was a much deeper talent pool and when the fighters fought quite often.

Still, probably should have said "one of the best matches of the decade," which is probably more accurate. Nevertheless, the ninth round of their first bout has, I believe, been called among the best rounds in boxing history; and the fight in general is highly regarded by a lot of people. Your post doesn't actually call any of this into dispute.

I can not disagree with you here. I would agree that the 9th is one of the greatest rounds ever fought and yes, the fight is highly regarded due to the drama that it produced. But in terms of boxing history the fight and Wards career need to be put into context. Had there never been an Arturo Gatti, this thread would not exist. While he may not be a Hall of Famer, Gatti had already established himself with fights like Ruelas and Robinson. Ward on the other hand needed Gatti.

So what parts of our statements are incorrect exactly? The bout has consistently been called one of the best matches ever and Ward was not just a "mediocre" fighter; "mediocre" fighters don't earn Ring Magazine's Fight of the Year three years in a row. He never won a world championship, but he was a consistent top ten light-welterweight from '98-'02 and renown for his exciting style; far from "mediocre".

You don't know boxing. That much is clear.

98 - 02 were years when the 140 lbs division was dead. Kostya Tszyu ran that weight with little opposition. How do you think Ricky Hatton was able to make a name for himself at 140 during that time? 126, 135, 147 and 154 were talent rich. So because you can be ranked by a sanctioning body that makes you a great fighter? Winning fight of the year in Ring Magazine three years in a row makes you a good fighter? You mean, the Ring Magazine which was irrelevant in that time frame because people in boxing circles ditched it for the internet (sites like Maxboxing) in the early 2000's until Oscar came in and bought Ring?

He was a mediocre fighter. He had and has great heart and a great fighting spirit. If you have ever been in the ring you know that this is not enough to make you a great fighter.

[James Mills]

[quote=""membrillo""]You don't know boxing. That much is clear.

98 - 02 were years when the 140 lbs division was dead. Kostya Tszyu ran that weight with little opposition. How do you think Ricky Hatton was able to make a name for himself at 140 during that time? 126, 135, 147 and 154 were talent rich. So because you can be ranked by a sanctioning body that makes you a great fighter? Winning fight of the year in Ring Magazine three years in a row makes you a good fighter? You mean, the Ring Magazine which was irrelevant in that time frame because people in boxing circles ditched it for the internet (sites like Maxboxing) in the early 2000's until Oscar came in and bought Ring?

He was a mediocre fighter. He had and has great heart and a great fighting spirit. If you have ever been in the ring you know that this is not enough to make you a great fighter.[/quote]
As I stated earlier, I did box so I do know a little something about it. I never claimed he was "great," I stated that he was not mediocre. Being one of the top ten boxers in the world at your weight class is not mediocre. It would sound as if you did not know boxing if you were to actually think that, as most fighter-bashers are ignorant of the ridiculous amounts of amateur boxers around the world and the extent of talent, ability, and training it takes to be apart of the very best.

And it doesn't matter whether or not Ring Magazine was relevant (which seems stretched to me anyways, as I remember reading Ring around these years and I'm fairly positive it was still the biggest boxing magazine in the US), they still had the privilege of watching all of the biggest fights in the world and chose Ward's as the best ones of each year. This doesn't make him a "great" fighter, you're right, but again, nobody ever stated it did. The fact remains that he was one of the best boxers in his division at the time, making him more than simply "mediocre" (unless you incorrectly believe that only the best fighter in the world at a particular weight class is anything above "mediocre").

Fwiw, I wasn't aware that the 140 lb division was as subpar as you claim throughout these years. Still, this is mere speculation and arguing that light WW was shallow in the late 90's and early 00's is as inconsequential as arguing that the HW division throughout the late '80s and early 90's was shallow; it's entirely unprovable.

Anyways, we've digressed. I admire your knowledge of the sport, as you sound far more versed in its intricacies than myself. I hope you also enjoy The Fighter.

["membrillo"]

The aim of my post was to put Wards career and place in boxing history in some sort of context. I loved watching Ward fight and found him to be a complete gentleman in and out of the ring but at the end of the day he was what he was and as far as boxing goes he was a decent club fighter. This is an accurate and fair assessment.

I will move on.

[conspirator12]

hoyte van hoytema's cinematography alone makes this worth watching. so many beautiful shots (i esp. liked the pov of wahlberg cleaning the streets while bale punches the air) and unconventional edits. the only movie i saw this year where i was engaged from start to finish. it really feels alive. and geez, the cast pulled their weight.

[talker]

I love a movie that can get a firm grip on tropes of a genre or style and make them work for it. The film was hardly a thing to wrestle with while watching it, but it was comfortable and familiar--functional. Hardly high praise, but so few movies even rise to the height of mediocre.
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dad jokes

[Professor Wagstaff]

As long as the world keeps giving him second chances, David O. Russell will find ways to destroy his reputation.

[domino harvey]

What the actual fuck

[knives]

My reaction to this is basically the same as whenever Godard sticks his head in the mud. I've slowly come to expect this level of insanity from the guy.

[matrixschmatrix]

Sweet of that site to repeatedly refer to an mtf transperson as 'he' and publish a photo of her

[domino harvey]

Looks like an non-issue: Police aren't pursuing charges against Russell