THE FIGHTER – david o. russell – 5.9 / 10

It’s all Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro’s fault.  I’m not positive that they originated it, but ever since they popularized it in Mean Streets, the good-for-nothing screw-up hoodlum sidekick has become an archetypal character in gritty movies about blue-collar guys from the wrong side of the tracks.  Johnny Boy, DeNiro’s character in Mean Streets, may not have been the first such character, but he was certainly the most indelible.  And ever since that movie, in any film centering around a group of male friends struggling to get or keep their lives on track, that character is bound to turn up.  Scorsese even went back to that well a couple times (with Joe Pesci’s characters in Goodfellas and Casino).

Actors love this type of character both because it wins awards and because these characters get all the big showcase capital ‘A’ acting moments.  And writers love them because it allows them to play on the theme of loyalty.  The problem is that over the years, this type of character has become a stereotype and a cliché.  This guy is always either family or a friend from way back (presumably before the main character was capable of being discerning about whom to befriend).  He’s definitely had trouble with the law and has probably had trouble with drugs and / or alcohol.  At some point in the film, this character will screw things up so badly for the protagonist that he’ll have to finally turn his back on his old friend / brother / cousin.  At which point the screw-up character will have one scene of redemption that proves he’s a decent human being and somehow helps the protagonist accomplish his goal, thus justifying the character’s presence in both the movie and the protagonist’s life.

The above description could fit dozens of characters in dozens of movies.  At this point, using that character without significantly altering him in some way is just lazy.  And that’s the fundamental flaw of The Fighter.  Dicky Ecklund (Christian Bale) is boxer Micky Ward’s (Mark Wahlberg) brother, best friend and trainer.  Once a fighter himself, he’s been dining out on a dubious knockdown of Sugar Ray Leonard a decade earlier.  But, see, Dicky’s also a crack addict and a chronic screw-up.  And the whole film is pretty much Dicky holding Micky back until Micky finally wises up and cuts Dicky loose.  Whereupon, of course, Dicky finally cleans up and redeems himself just in time to help Micky to a big victory in the film’s final reel.  It all plays out exactly as you’d expect after the first five minutes.  There’s nothing-- aside from Bale's performance-- to separate Dicky from Johnny Boy or the dozens of other characters just like him.

To be completely honest, I always hate this type of character so I might not be the most impartial judge of a film in which this character appears.  Even in Mean Streets I have no patience for this type of asshole.  I just don’t want to spend an hour and half with a character this awful.  Even though he always gets a scene or two to redeem himself, it’s not nearly enough, in my eyes anyway, to justify all the time we spend watching him be a dick to everyone who cares about him.

Christian Bale’s performance as Dicky-- as you’d expect from him in this type of role-- is superlative.  But I just don’t care.  I hate Dicky from the minute he shows up on screen and in every minute afterward.  At least DeNiro in Mean Streets had the benefit of being original.  By now everyone in the audience knows what Dicky’s about the second he shows up.  He never does anything to deviate from the established pattern of this type of character.  And other than the charisma of the actor playing him, there’s nothing of value in Dicky until far too late in the film to matter.

On top of that, the main plot of The Fighter is also one we’ve seen dozens of times: a no name guy from the wrong side of the tracks works his way up through the ranks only to come up short; then when everyone thinks he’s washed up, he uses his life experience to pull out an improbable come-from-behind victory.  Yes, the story this time happens to be based on fact.  But I don’t care.  I’ve seen it before.  A lot.  And I’m just not that interested in seeing it again unless you’re going to do something original with it.  And The Fighter is most definitely not after something original.

From the camerawork (handheld and gritty, of course) to the costuming and hairstyling (over the top and ridiculous, of course), The Fighter is painfully obvious.  David O. Russell (a filmmaker who seemed like he had a bright future eleven years ago when he made the still awesome Three Kings) makes the obvious choice every time.  Nothing here is fresh or original.  If you just can’t get enough of true-life sports uplift stories, The Fighter might work for you.  But if you’re looking for something that deviates at all from the expected, this is not your movie.  The performances are mostly excellent (except for a severely overmatched Mark Wahlberg), but that’s the only thing exceptional about the film.  And at this point in the genre’s history, that’s just not enough.