Triumph outside the ring

Film Review

The Fighter
DIRECTED BY: David O’Russell
STARRING: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo
CERT: 15A

Here’s another from the Oscars posse but thankfully a film of a slightly better standard than some of the other contenders. It’s no Raging Bull but, if you ask me, that’s a good thing. (I know, I know – Scorsese, De Niro, Pesci, a classic for the ages and whatever you’re having yourself. But I can’t stand the bloody thing. Tune in next week when Citizen Kane gets the hatchet!)
The Fighter is based on the true story of “Irish” Micky Ward, a journeyman boxer from the tough streets of Lowell, Massachusetts, (you know, the kind that Ben Affleck characters live on) who got himself a shot at the welterweight title in the 1980s.
I’d never heard of him but Mark Wahlberg had and spent several years trying to bring his tale to the screen. Matt Damon and Brad Pitt apparently turned down the lead role and Darren Aronofsky want to direct it. Which is a great pity, since it might have spared us Black Swan. In the end Wahlberg put on the gloves himself and David O Russell came in to direct – working with the actor again after I ¤ Huckabees and the excellent Three Kings.
As a fighter, Micky (Wahlberg) is going nowhere, mostly thanks to bad management by his Mammy (Leo), a hard-nosed slapper with a gaggle of daughters all cut from the same rough cloth, who only stops yammering out career guidance when they pause to stick another cigarette in their gobs.
The only man around the place is his hero and half-brother Dickie (Bale), a former boxer who once put the wind up Sugar Ray Leonard and has taught Micky everything he knows about the sport. But now Dickie is a junkie and no longer in his brother’s corner. He’s also being filmed for a HBO documentary, which Dickie believes will help get his career back on track – but turns out to be a feature on crack addiction.
Things turn around for Micky when he meets Charlene (Adams), a tough cookie barmaid who drags the warrior out of the boy and pushes him to finally stand up and be a man – not by winning a title but by breaking away from his dysfunctional, suffocating family.
That’s the real heart of the story. The fight scenes are very well executed but the real battles in The Fighter take place inside relationships. So it’s a slight disappointment when director Russell seems to brush that aside in the closing stages, in favour of the expected finale.
A pity, too, that leading man Wahlberg brings little real personality to his role – even if his character is the subdued one. There’s such a thing as quiet charisma but not here. But to be fair, no matter what he did, he’d have been eclipsed by co-stars.
Most of the talk will be of Christian Bale’s phenomenal performance and rightly so but Melissa Leo gives him a run for his money as a Mammy you wouldn’t bring anyone home to. Amy Adams also shows she can do tough and sexy as well as she can do innocent and sweet.
All of them deserve the acclaim they’ve been getting, though I’m not sure the film as a whole is Oscar material. It’s a fine drama and a decent sports flick but – like almost all of its fellow award contenders – it just doesn’t have the kind of quality that makes for an enduring classic.

Sanctum 3D
DIRECTED BY: Alister Grierson
STARRING: Richard Roxborough, Rhys Wakefield,  Ioan Grufford
CERT: 15A

Once upon a time I did PR in the music industry. This chiefly involved finding inventive ways of bending the truth, like plucking one word from a press review in order to make a band look good. So, the world was led to believe that NME thought a new single was “amazing”, though the good and honest journalist may actually have said it was “amazing” he didn’t go out and hang himself after hearing it.
So I can’t help but smile when the PR fellas do the same for movies. Or when they help sell a dodgy flick like this by attaching the words, “from James Cameron”. Which might make you think it was the man himself who made the movie, when in fact he is the executive producer. Which means he put some money in it and maybe lent some advice. It is the bending of truth and sure you have to laugh. Unless you’ve already wasted money on it that could have fed the children.
Sanctum is basically The Descent without the monsters. A team of cavers, led by macho caving legend Frank (Roxborough) head down a massive cave system in Papua New Guinea. The rest of the crew includes Frank’s son Josh (Wakefield), his girlfriend Victoria (Alice Parkinson) and Daddy’s right hand man, Crazy George (Dan Wyllie).
So off they go, seemingly not too concerned with what the weather is going to be doing. Because no sooner are they below ground than a storm blows up that floods the cave, blocking their way back. Oh dear. What to do? Why, press on, mate! We’ll eventually run out of food, supplies and probably air but just think! Nobody’s ever been down this far before! It’s like going to space, just backwards!
You know what happens then. But if you have the option and you simply must see it, give the 3D version a miss. There’s the odd nice spectacle but there’s not much use for it in tight spaces underground and the last thing you want in a largely dark film is to go and make it darker.