Okay, if there is one movie on the Best Picture list that shouldn’t be there it’s The Fighter. This happens to be a personal project for Mark Wahlberg who happened to train with the real life fighter, Mickey Ward, whom Wahlberg portrays…and sadly, Mark Wahlberg is outshined by….well, everyone else in the movie.
Mickey and his drug-induced brother Dick (played obnoxiously by Christian Bale) are two brothers who are trying to survive the frightening, streets of Lowell, Mass. But Mickey wants more than survival. He wants to relive his glory days as a Prize-fighter! The only things standing in his way is his own pride…as well as his brother’s drug habit, his seven dastardly sisters and one tackily clad mother with the most rancid Northeastern accent that could make Jersey Shore tolerable.
Let me just say, that of all the movies that are possibly going to be in that envelope for Best Picture you can definitely put this one at the top of the list as “not gonna happen.” First of all, we’ve seen this story too many times and all of us are over it. We’ve seen Rocky, we’ve seen Million Dollar Baby, we’ve seen Girlfight. HUH? You’ve never seen Girlfight? Anyway, the point is, boxing movies are fun, blah blah. If this movie gets any Oscars I hope it will be for Melissa Leo’s performance as Mickey’s tacky stage-mom mother. As for David O. Russell as Best Director? He wasn’t able to highlight his actor’s in the moments that counted the most and his “mean streets” of Lowell look as tame as a Millie Vanillie video. Worth seeing? Sure. Oscar worthy. Hell no.
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