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The Fighter is a boxing true story movie about the welterweight boxer Micky Ward and his crazy, drug-addict brother, Dicky Eklund, an ex-fighter.
Ward is from Lowell, Massachusetts, and most of his career as a junior welterweight took place during the 1990s.
Mark Wahlberg plays the role of Micky and Christian Bale his brother Dicky. The story is really about Micky trying to manage his boxing career while being controlled and smothered by his domineering mother (Melissa Leo) and his sisters and having to cope with his brother (and trainer) Dicky.
Then there’s the difficulty caused by the new girlfriend in Micky’s life (Amy Adams) who tries to convince him that his family don’t have his best interests at heart.
Dicky’s biggest moment in his own boxing career took place a decade earlier, he knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard in a fight.
Dicky was once a contender but now he’s addicted to crack, and Micky is simulataneously protective of him and infuriated by him. During the film, there’s a sub-plot of a camera crew following Dicky around town.
He thinks the ensuing documentary will be glowing and all about his ‘comeback’. In fact, as we see at the end of the film, the camera crew has an entirely different agenda.
The Fighter is a film that gives a different take on the life of a prizefighter
, and there were not one but three Oscar nominations – for Bale, Adams and Leo – as well as nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.
If you’d had a bet on Betfair at the time on any of The Fighter’s Oscar nominations in 2010, you might well have been in profit as both Bale won Best Supporting Actor and Adams won Best Supporting Actress.