With a fairly trivial plot of an underdog boxer making a comeback, The Fighter wisely reinvents the genre by making it a family story, combined with redemption and a late coming-of-age character study. The film starts slow and grows on you.
The Fighter is directed with a steady hand by David Russell, and starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, and Amy Adams. It tells the life-story of professional boxer "Irish" Micky Ward (played by Wahlberg) and his older half-brother and role-model Dicky Eklund (Bale). Though the cast gives excellent performance, including Ward’s mother, many sisters, and other relatives and trainers, especially outstanding is Christian Bale, who unveils another pan of his otherwise quite typecast roles as an actor.
The Fighter does walk occasionally a little too close to the melodrama, but all in all it is a satisfying film, and past its first twenty minutes, very engaging.