The Fighter (2010)

7 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture? 8 out of 10 on imdb? Are you kidding? WHO gave "The Fighter" this good reputation? WHAT gives "The Fighter" this good reputation? Firstly, it has nothing that was not already seen before and better. Secondly, half of the movie nothing ever happens and the focuses are on all the wrong aspects. And thirdly, and probably the reason for its success, this is an all-american-fell-good-uplifting story, made by americans for americans, that brushes all the social problems it supposedly portrays very nicely and tidily with a bunch of clichés and sort-of-supposedly-comical situations, to finally portray, after a long, very long, hour and a half, a Rocky-like-from-rags-to-riches story. It was based on a true story. Yeah! That by itself cannot be a reason to get away with expressing deep social problems, such as drug addition, in the light-feel-good-everything-will-turn-out-ok-Hollywood-fashion, and then call itself a drama, only because the characters have the names of real people. "The Fighter" follows two boxing brothers in the 80s. One, Christian Bale, in the one true great performance of the picture, is Dicky, who had one great fight years ago, but now is a crack-addict who dreams of a comeback. HBO is following him around with cameras, ostensibly making a documentary about his comeback, but which is really about his drug addition. He is the trainer of his younger brother, Mark Whalberg, Mickey, who may have a future in boxing, but due to Bale's and his mother's (Melissa Leo) bad management, gets in all the wrong fights. Whalberg meets Amy Adams, and she urges him, after another bad fight, to seek new management, getting herself into a lot of trouble with the family. Meanwhile, Bale goes to jail, and that's the excuse for Whalberg to get away from the clutches of his family and start making it big in the rings. Yet he is torn by his devotion to the family, and his need to win. And the title match is coming up, just as the brother is getting out of jail... Summarized like this, it sounds away more interesting than it is. The boxing scenes are few, and either Walhberg loses big (in the beginning), or he wins big (at the end), always in the same away: getting his ass kicked for 10 rounds and then giving one single KO punch. No surprise ever at the beginning if he is going to win or lose the fights. The movie gives that away always in the way it builds them up. And so what is the rest of the movie? The family drama! I haven't seen a family drama as bad since "Brothers" last year. And most scenes are there just to please the american audience, such as the trying to lynch Amy Adams scene, by Mickey and Dicky's 7 or 8 sisters and their mother. Bale's drug addition is also to laugh at. He is a drug addict who comes out clean as a whistle from jail (there is no drug in jail, did you know that?!), redeemed, and ready to do good for his brother all the way to the title. The Oscar for Melissa Leo is also incredibly unbelievable. Just because she speaks with an accent and has those lines like Sandra Bullock's Oscar performance, she is noticeable enough on screen for the award. Amy Adams, also nominated, much more deserved it. Her performance may not fill the screen with character acting, but is much more powerful in the way it's contained, and especially real. She truly is a great actress, and doesn't need to steal the scene to show it. David O. Russell has given us great films such as "Three Kings". But "the Fighter" is just to make americans feel good about themselves, and believe in the american dream. Believe that every bad person redeems himself, believe that a social drama is a bunch of cliché-like scenes, Oprah style, and believe that a losing fighter changes pace in mid-fight due to love and an uplifting speech. I am sure that the opponent also has a girlfriend waiting in the wings, and his manager also gave in an uplifting speech. But is he the villain just because the fighter the movie is following is in the other corner? I hated "The Fighter" as a film. It gives nothing. It is nothing. Shame on you Academy.