The Fighter gives you fights within the rink and within the fighter's heart body and soul. But most of all, this movie shows you the fight within the family. The fight that must be fought before any fight within the ring can even be thought of. A main goal which is deteriorated by outside problems that seem minuscule to the main goal. The pressure of going behind your family to feed your dreams the right fuel, the want and need for the right path to go down where every other path led to disappointment. This epic film will show and conquer the fight within your mind body and soul.
The phenomenal trio of brilliant actors and actresses allowed us to believe the frames shown before us are the actual people behind the story. The beautiful and destructive relationship between the two brothers grips us so deeply throughout the film creating an emotional attachment early on. The family surrounding the fighter brings us even deeper and further away from the ringt but to only hold us closer to the real struggle of a fighter. A family that is there for their son in the ring on the outside but deep down they're a family searching for an out from their lives through their sons success which is limited to a non-existing one.
A dreadful defeat causes the fighter to reroute his training options to an outside source that is more stable and reliable than his erratic family. A fighter's support system relying so heavily on a damaged family is not the right equation for a successful career as we see, only a caring family for the right reasons can bring a fighter to great heights. While watching we sympathize for the fighter in that all we want for him is a family that is there for him no matter where the money is, no matter if there's a check coming in or not.
We might see a fighter in a rink as a bully who had to channel his fury into a career, which can be the point, but this so called bully will need to sacrifice every part of his body, every cell in his mind to endure the struggle through his career. This film takes you for a ride through every aspect of a fighter's life. The ups and the way downs. The times where rock bottom couldn't get any lower.
Out of a desperate act to clean himself up, the weakest one in the family, the brother, redeems himself by creating an alliance throughout the whole family, allowing them to see what the whole thing was about, The Fighter, not their empty wallets. Its a great redemption to see a crack head brother who once was a great fighter bring a damaged and rotten emotional family come together to watch their brother/son become the great Mickey Ward.
A fighter got in the rink with his family yelling at him for all the wrong reasons, do better, fight harder, win harder. Two hours later I saw a fighter get in the ring I didn't see before, he was changed, he and his family transformed through those two hours into something absolutely grateful for every breath they took and every smile they made. Call it a rocky film? Call it that. But I call it The Fighter because it shows us the real fight between a fighters gloves, himself.
The Louie Bee
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