Director: David O. Russell
It is interesting that the popularity of the boxing film seems to have increased just as interest in boxing has gone down. I think it's easy to say that boxing is the most cinematic sport - renderings of other sports emphasize director fakery or accidentally highlight the tedium of the actual game by making the cinematic version nothing like the real thing. But boxing is pretty simple: two guys (or girls) beating the hell out of one another.
The Fighter is a good movie, but will I remember much about it in six months or a year? Probably not. It does have a memorable rendering of desperation - where desperate people hold on to one another without realizing they're strangling one another to death. Bale's performance as Dicky Eklund is hammy and sometimes distracting, and in general the film is an acting showcase. Obvious music cues don't help either - at least David O. Russell is back, and perhaps he will earn his way back to making a crazy film like I Heart Huckabees.
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