The Fighter

I liked your review but I'm not a huge fan of the movie. May be it's because I've been watching boxing a long time and the most exciting aspect of Ward's career was his trilogy with Gatti, which for what ever reason was excluded from the movie. There were also a number of pretty BIG inaccuracies, especially in that final fight with Neary. Go out and watch that fight guys, the differences are ridiculous. Having said that, Bales and to a certain extent Wahlbergs performances saved the movie from being just average.

The ending is a farce, and historically very inaccurate.

I hate The Fighter, despite the quality performance of Bale.

Really enjoyed reading your review of this film even though you probably liked it more than I did. I had no problem with Mark Wahlberg who worked very hard not be blown off the screen by the flashy work of Bale and Leo. I can see why Bale won the Oscar, but the performance was a little over the top for me at times...really had a hard time watching the character go through crack withdrawal while in prison. Especially since there is no such thing as withdrawal from crack. The film seemed to be center around the character of Dicky even though Mickey really should have been the focus. Melissa Leo and Amy Adams were superb.

Dicky was the focus to make the movie more interesting and compelling.

The real Mickey Ward isn't that interesting. He's just a quiet, humble, soft spoken guy who made a career as a fringe contender in boxing, but wasn't nearly as good as the movie depicted him.

As a previous poster stated, the only way to make the movie interesting if centered around Mickey was to focus more on the highlight of his career, which was his trilogy with Arturo Gatti.

Well, OK, but it doesn't change my opinion about the movie...if they wanted to make a movie about Dickie, then that's what they should have done.