I'm quittin' Charlene. I'm done fightin', I don't need it any more.

The Fighter

Director: David O. Russell (Three Kings, I heart Huckabees - incidentally he also produced Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy)

Screenplay by: Scott Silver (x-men Origins, 8 Mile) , Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson

Story by: Keith Dorrington, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson

Cinematographer: Hoyte van Hoytema (Not a famed hollywood cinematographer, I believe The Fighter is his first hollywood film but he got a lot of praise for 2008's Let The Right One In)

Cast: Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, Amy Adams Melissa Leo

Is this film worth your time? Yes, and probably more than once too.

If there was one person who wasn't going to like The Fighter it was me. Yes, Christian Bale is a genius, but I had never really warmed up to him (granted I have a long way to go on his filmography). I also never thought Mark Wahlberg was a particularly special actor and was vehemently opposed to his nom for The Departed. (Yes, I still quote his lines, who can forget such classic Staff Sgt. Dignam lines as "I'm the guy who does his job, you must be the other guy" and "Maybe, maybe not, maybe fuck yourself"). And girl, don't get me started on that uninspired title. Seriously? "The Fighter"?... On top of all this, a "Biographical Sports Film" about boxing didn't exactly sound like my cup of tea. Which is why, as I watched the opening scenes of The Fighter, I was shocked to find myself quickly and deeply absorbed into this film. And now, I practically go door to door asking people to watch and re-watch it.

The Fighter tells the story of boxer Micky Ward and just as much, his half-brother Dicky Eklund, as Micky tries to disentangle himself from his family's hold over his professional success and restore his shaken self-confidence and Dicky grapples with his drug addiction and an unwavering dedication to helping his brother succeed, in his own way.

Now here is a little secret I discovered about this film near the very beginning: this film is designed to make you feel as if you are living every part of the story. This realization made watching it an even bigger treat than it otherwise would have been. In every single scene, the director left me in awe of how masterfully everything was crafted so as to allow the audience to live the moment, to be lost in the story.

I shall provide examples: There is a scene where Amy Adams' character Charlene steps out onto a balcony. The camera briefly flashes to show her feet on the wooden floor. If you walked onto a wooden surface barefoot, the first sensation registering in your brain would likely be that tactile feel of your foot on the floor. In another scene Mark Wahlberg's character, Micky, shoves his injured fist into a bowl of rice and the camera focuses in on the powder left on his hand as he pulls it out. The sensation of leftover powder on one's hand is such a dominant sensation in real life and yet such a thing would usually ignored in a "movie scene", dismissed as irrelevant. There are many more examples and in almost every frame the camera aptly focuses on the most dominant , the most tactile features, creating the illusion of watching the events unfold in real time.

The brilliance of things focused on and not focused on doesn't end there. Micky had a daughter. Her mother wouldn't let Micky see his daughter very much and is generally a grade A asshole to him. But! We get a few quick and powerful shots of this dynamic and that's it. No long-winded cryfest over his separation from his daughter. I appreciated this very much. There was a lot of sad things happening in this family and the film found a perfect balance between conveying the tragedy while at the same time providing genuine and heartfelt moments of joy and laughter.

Now dear reader, I'll be totally honest with you. I made notes on this film and for the life of me cannot now locate them. So I will leave you with this thought: The Fighter is one of the best acted films I have ever seen, aside of course from Melissa Leo who frustratingly won a goddamn Oscar for her crazed, loud and empty performance.

Bam.