“The Fighter”: Not A Knockout
“The Fighter” may win Oscars for Christian Bale or Amy Adams or Melissa Leo, but I have to confess that I couldn’t make it through more than 45 minutes of the DVD. Bale (does he have to radically alter his body for every other movie?) gives a splendid look-at-me-act performance, Leo is doing the “Goodfellas” dress-20-years-younger-than-my-age-dye-my-hair-whorish-blonde routine. Adams give a good, quiet, tough performance, and Mark Wahlberg anchors the film with a fine, working-class gravitas. (Although I don’t believe for a second that he’s a welterweight, i.e. 146 pounds.) Neither of the young leads, however, were enough to make me keep watching.
Disagree vehemently about your negative feelings concerning THE FIGHTER. To me it is the finest motion picture of the year. How could you bail out after only 45 minutes? We were completely enthralled with the whole film. Bale is always a revelation… but here he so convincing that it’s scary. Humbug to your review. Bale is a shoo-in for an Oscar nom… and perhaps even the old boy himself.