I'm not sure what it is about boxing movies, but they almost always seem to make a good movie. There were the Rocky movies in the 70's and 80's (although let's please forget Rocky V) and more recently there has been Cinderella Man and Million Dollar Baby - even the latest Rocky Balboa wasn't a half bad movie.
I think what helps Boxing movies is that they're very personal - you don't have to follow a story about a whole team, you can focus on one player and really get into the problems he has to overcome to become a great fighter. So comes the true story of Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his very dysfunctional family. Micky is being trained by his brother, Dicky (Christian Bale) who is a local legend because he won a pretty big fight on HBO once - but now Dicky is doing crack and holding Micky back (rhyme not intended).
Christian provides a bright spot for this movie that may have been a little too formulaic for it's own good (it follows the basic outline for any boxing/sports movie). His ability to become a character is uncanny - he plays a very believable crack addict that will leave you wondering: Wasn't this guy Batman? Along with Christian Bale, Amy Adams (Micky's girlfriend) and Melissa Leo (Micky's mom) give great performances. Micky has about 6 or 7 sisters that provide some violent and sassy laughs for the movie - even if you feel bad for how dysfunctional they are, they will still put a smile on your face.
The movie may be a little predictable, but the performances are what make this movie worth seeing. The grittiness separates Fighter from being a Rocky clone and lastly, one of my favorite all-time quotes comes from this movie:
I'm the fighter here. Not you, not you, not you.... not you.... NOT YOU.... and not you.
(Ok, I exaggerated that a little bit)
Makin Movie Blog Grade
No comments:
Post a Comment