Mark Wahlberg (center) and Christian Bale (right) in "The Fighter"The boxer in the ring is a powerful image of the individual alone against the world. Stripped nearly bare, facing an opponent who seeks to concuss him, with all of those who would offer him protection or solace or advice outside of the ropes, he’s as elemental and existential a creature as was ever dreamt of by any philosopher.
Perhaps that’s why so many films are made about boxers (well, that and the spectacle of muscular movie stars with their shirts off...). Playing a boxer, an actor is called upon to enact a routine that’s not unlike his daily job: get fit, learn the moves, maintain focus, and follow the fight plan under the scrutiny of a crowd. And when a camera is up close, that crowd -- the movie audience -- can feel each punch, each drop of fear, each ounce of courage. No wonder we enjoy the genre.
In “The Fighter,” Mark Wahlberg steps into the ring where, oh, James Cagney and John Garfield and Paul Newman and Robert De Niro and Denzel Washington and so many others have trod before him. Wahlberg has always been a physical specimen, and he’s grown increasingly as an actor, adding real depth and complexity to the boyish charm and earnest puppiness he’s always carried. In “The Fighter,” he demonstrates great energy, range and pathos, and he’s just as convincing as a confused and determined guy outside the ring as he is a brawler in it.
But Wahlberg is not alone in “The Fighter,” not hardly. The film, which is based on the life and career of Irish Micky Ward, a welterweight from Lowell, Massachusetts, teems with great characters. Ward had an older half-brother, Dicky Ecklund, who was also a boxer and once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard (or did he trip...?) and then sunk into crack addiction and its attendant mania. And he had a mom, Alice, who managed Dicky and wanted to do the same for Micky. And he had a passel of pushy sisters, who sided with mom to pressure Micky to do as she bade. And he had a sweetheart, Charlene, who wanted to prise him from the clutches of his family, whether he continued his fighting career or not.
This massive ménage -- comic, caustic, crude and clinging -- is played powerfully from top to bottom. As Dicky, Christian Bale gives arguably his greatest performance. Gaunt, hyperactive, egoistic, self-destructive, given to charming babble but uncannily insightful about boxing, he moves in circles -- and those circles move; you can see three or four sides of him at once. Alice is played by Melissa Leo (“Homicide: Life on the Streets,” “Frozen River”) with sauce, swagger and the most poisonous sort of mother love. And Amy Adams, of all souls, plays foul-mouthed, earthy Charlene with little regard for her sweetheart-of-the-movies persona; it’s a kick.
All of these fine performances (and there are yet others) are rolled by director David O. Russell (“Three Kings,” “Flirting with Disaster,” “I Heart Huckabees”) into a film with classic bones but modern skin. Written by a team of at least four, “The Fighter” could be a classic Warner Bros. or Columbia boxing picture -- save for the language and for Dicky’s drug of choice. The film finds adrenalized energy everywhere: in Micky’s training sessions and fights, in Dicky’s addled madness, in the cacaphony of Alice and her ghastly chorus of daughters. Only when Charlene and Micky are together is there a sense of calm -- and that, ironically, seems to agitate Micky, who needs the tumult of a fight to feel a sense of self-worth. It sounds frantic, but you’re borne along by the sheer verve of the thing.
There’s a long lineage of boxing films that “The Fighter” sometimes resembles, including “Rocky” with its underdog-gets-a-shot story, and “Raging Bull” and “On the Waterfront,” with their depictions of sibling codependency. But it’s a film possessed of its own force, wit and style, and it builds to a rousing climax that absolutely pays off in crowd-pleasing fashion. It knows what it is, doesn’t try to be what it’s not, and hits you with drop-dead force. In short, it’s terrific.
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114 min., R, multiple locations
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Grade: A-minus