A quest that I kind of stumbled into is the Oscar nominees for Best Picture. I had already seen Toy Story 3, Inception, The Social Network, True Grit, and Black Swan and liked, if not loved, all of them, so I figured I'd try my best to see the others before February 27 when they hand out the award. So now came time for me to watch The Fighter, and I was underwhelmed. I find more...jenqui.
Whenever you've got Christian Bale (a heralded actor who is versatile) and Mark Wahlberg (a hunk who's got the lovable Matt Damon-thing to him) in the same movie, there's definitely potential. Especially when I found out that Micky Ward (Wahlberg's character) was from Massachusetts. That could only mean one thing - awesome accents! And while the accents were indeed awesome, this movie featured a different side of Massachusetts from the Boston that all the other movies seem to portay. That's right, apparently Lowell is to Massachusetts what Oklahoma is to Texas, or what the South is to the United States. Everybody was so white trash! (I stole that phrasing from my friend Ian at www.amainnerd.wordpress.com - check him out, he comes up with his own phrases!) So with that as the first initial shock, I was caught on my heels a little for the rest of the movie.
Mark Wahlberg, let's face it, is hit or miss with acting. Even within the movie, he had some incredibly-acted scenes (like when he gave Dicky a piece of his mind as he was leaving the prison's visitation room) and some "Mark Wahlberg Talks To Animals"-esque sections (basically any time he talked to his mother, Alice....calling your mom by her first name is annoying too, so strike two). Don't remember that SNL sketch? Or do you have it set as your home page? Me too.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/37753/saturday-night-live-mark-wahlberg-talks-to-animals
I love it. Now onto Mr. Bale. He really got the mannerisms and quirkiness of Dicky down pat, as seen in the footage at the end of the movie of the two actual brothers. He seemed like a believable junkie, so much so that I couldn't fathom him ever being a legitimate boxer. On that note, let's just all scoff at the idea of Wahlberg fighting at 140...he's 5'10'', there's no way he's a shade under 165 in this movie. However, Bale was tiny, and it was a shock to my system after seeing The Dark Knight again recently. Christian Bale was a really good actor in this movie, and I guess he's legit enough to go crazy on set, but whatever.
The actual boxing scenes were lame. I mean, when he knocked out the Mexican newcomer with a kidney shot, I bet it was a shock to everyone. But in the movie it looked like they told Sanchez (wasn't that his name? Gonzalez maybe? Ramirez? Martinez? Ugh this is getting racist...) to just...stand there. No reaction whatsoever when Mick half-jumps to the side to deliver the final blows. What can I say? I want my boxing matches to be somewhat believable.
While the boxing was lame, there were some keeper scenes. Like when Dicky gets released from prison and shows up in the gym for the first time with his mom and Micky all reunited - that's real tension. I mean just pure, unadulterated AWKWARD. It was incredible, and they really did a good job of letting it just get to the awkward stage and just fester...it made me feel like I needed to do something with my hands, Ricky Bobby-style.
One last thing I noticed was the soundtrack. If they come out with a soundtrack album for this movie, it will be awesome (The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Whitesnake...some really good rock from the time period). However, I felt like the songs were spread in an odd fashion across the movie. Where I'd rather have an epic song as the bottom layer behind a boxing match, there were some upbeat snippets thrown in. Or when Dicky was running from the cops while Micky and the family are enjoying themselves, I would've enjoyed a splicing of a grungy song for the chase while having some light jazz in the background of the dinner - and instead it was Led Zeppelin's peppy rock "Good Times Bad Times". It's the director's prerogative what to put in, but I didn't necessarily agree with it - kind of like The Watchmen's awkward soundtrack.
All in all, the movie was really good, and it told a very unique story of a hometown, family-oriented guy coming out of his fallen-star brother's shadow to achieve greatness. The relationship between Micky and Charlene was too trite for me, so it didn't really add much. The story to this movie might deserve an Oscar, but I don't think the movie itself deserves a shiny trophy.
