“The Fighter” is a Bad Movie

What is wrong with you people? (What do you mean “you people”?!!) Really? I’m the outcast on this one? It didn’t occur to anyone else while they were watching “The Fighter” that they were experiencing the worst kind of pandering, Oscar-baiting, predictable garbage? I really expected a lot more people to back me up here, but apparently I’m walking the lonely road of correctness by myself. It’s a hard journey, but it’s worth it. Because I’m right.

So many of you balked at this that I went and saw the movie again. Yes, I’ve watched it twice. It’s still bad. Get ready for a bullet point list:

1. “But Christian Bale was awesome! He’s going to win an Oscar!” Yeah, I know he was, but that proves nothing. Christian Bale would be “awesome” in the title role of a Dolly Pardon biopic. The man is good in any role, any time, anywhere. He was a better actor at nine years old than the entire cast of “Twilight” combined.

What I don’t understand is how a good performance equals a good movie. Christian Bale has starred in many bad films: “Equilibrium,” “Terminator: Salvation,” “Public Enemies,” the “Shaft” remake, the list keeps going. He was great in all of them, and the movies still sank like the Titanic. Great acting is necessary for a great film, but it is not sufficient.

2. “But Mark Wahlberg was…pretty good!” The halting, back-handed nature of that compliment—which I have heard in almost every discourse on this movie—should tell you all you need to know.

3. Script. My biggest problem with “The Fighter” is its weak, exposition-heavy, tone-deaf script. Now these are not literal transcriptions, but they’re pretty close. Check out these paragons of deftness, these subtle gems:

“I’m embarrassed. I told everyone I was going to win this fight and move into a bigger apartment so I could see my daughter more. I’m sick of being a disappointment.”

“Well, there’s a guy in Las Vegas who wants to train you, but you’re too afraid to go and see him.”

“You went ten rounds and he couldn’t touch you. You were the pride of Lowell. You were my hero.”

“Doing crack cocaine…mmmm…doing crack cocaine…”

“That is my son. He’s crying, he needs me, and I’m stuck in here.”

“Yay! A bigger apartment!”–(played completely straight by a nine year old girl)

“There he is, officer! He did it to me and now he is doing it again!”

Notice how the characters spell out their position in the plot; no subtlety, no incongruity, it’s like they’re lining up for a freaking dance. This is called “bad writing.” Some good improvs from the talented cast aside, this was the order of business all the way through.

4. Predictability. I know nothing about boxing, or Micky Ward, and yet I knew the outcome of every fight in this movie before the first bell rang. In a boxing movie, I feel that this is a problem. There should be some degree of suspense, and there was never any.

5. Bad Boxing. The choreography of the boxing was awful, or maybe just how they edited it. Every fight had two speeds: Micky is getting crushed and not throwing a single punch, and Micky wins. Nothing else. This made the matches tedious and frustrating. Now some will tell me this is just how Micky fights. I find that hard to believe. If that is literally true, exactly the way they depicted it in the film, that Micky Ward should never have had a boxing drama made about him, because he’s boring as hell to watch in the ring.

6. Absent Protagonist. As good as Mark is in the title role, and he is quite good, there’s no character here. His only flaws are BS flaws like “he works too hard” or “he’s too nice of a guy.” Yawn. Now when you’re stacked against Christian Bale playing a drug addict, you’re always going to come off as vanilla, but it’s still a problem. Ward is simply a passive character, and the audience is always way ahead of him.

7. Shallow Finale. The boxer Ward fights in the climax is a Cockney jerk with nothing even bordering on believable motivations. This kind of two-dimensional nonsense is not acceptable at the climax of a serious, mature drama. You don’t get to make shortcuts like that in this genre. Why didn’t you just give him a moustache to twiddle while you’re at it?

8. Inexplicable Decisions. Why exactly does Charlene unceremoniously dump Micky Ward for getting unfairly arrested while nonviolently trying to prevent his defenseless brother from getting beaten to a pulp? Is that grounds for a scornful dismissal?

Oh right, I remember, she spelled it out for me in case I didn’t get it: “I’m not going to let you or your family drag me down” (really subtle writing by the way). Wow. What a douche bag this girl is. Of course, she decides to come back when she sees a documentary on HBO about what a crack-head Micky’s brother is.

What?

So she leaves because his family is going to drag her down (from her lofty career as a bartender), then returns because she sees some stuff on TV about Dickie that she already knew. Never mind the fact that if she really was concerned about the Ward/Ecklund family being a moral quagmire, this would be excellent proof.

Blegh. That’s all the scorning of this film I can do right now. I’m going to go watch “Rocky” and pretend this thing never happened.