Thirst (2009) – Korean Gothic Horror Underpinned By Psychological Drama and Literary Naturalism

Old Boy director Chan-wook Park gives the vampire genre a brand new twist. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a vampire movie this much in a long time. Not a sparkle in sight!

“This is a violent, visceral, gory, deeply carnal and deeply philosophical vampire movie, if you can picture such a thing. It is beautifully rendered too, and everything from the weekly majong games at Lady Ra’s to the straggling camp of believers that pray for a laying on of hands from the martyr-priest-vampire is thought-provoking as well as visually pleasing.”

Read the rest of my review here: THIRST

Sinners and Saints (2010) – What Was I Thinking?

You know how sometimes you look at the specs for a movie and it has some decent actors in it and it’s set in a pretty good local and seems to have a somewhat trite, if still viable plot and you think to yourself ”well, this could be an okay way to spend an hour and a half” only to find that once you start watching you begin to question what the heck you were thinking? Yeah, this is one of those.

Sinners and Saints (2010) directed by William Kaufman stars Johnny Strong as Sean Riley, Kevin Phillips (Will Ganz), Costas Manylor (Raymond Crowe), Sean Patrick Flanery (Colin) Tom Berenger (Captain Trahan), Method Man (Weddo), Kim Coates (Dave) and Jürgen Prochnow (Mr. Rhykin).

You can find the rest of my vitriol here: Sinners and Saints

Mule

On the topic of Iconic moments

I was invited to take part in a discussion of Iconic moments on film from the 80s over at Cinema Sentries.

The first question I want to ask is naturally “my 80s?” – because I have a distinct feeling there’s more than one kind of 80s out there – the curse of liquid modernity hits again, as it tends to do everytime someone starts making lists.

I wrote about Jack with an Axe in The Shining, but there are other moments I could just as easily have gone for, like Terminator “I’ll be back” or Sgt Elias death scene in Platoon or how about Roy Batty sitting on top of a roof in the rain with a dove in his hands saying “time to die” in Blade Runner?

Be that as it may you can find the collective musings on the topic here

Mule

Skinwalkers (2006) – Good Wolves and Bad … Really?

Skinwalkers (2006) directed by James Isaac stars Rhona Mitra (Rachel Talbot), Matthew Knight (Timothy), Elias Koteas (Jonas), Jason Behr (Varek), Kim Coates (Zo), Natassia Malthe (Sonja), Rogue Johnston (Grenier), Sarah Carter (Katherine), Barbara Gordon (Nana), Lyriq Bent (Doak) and Tom Jackson (Will).

There’s a prophecy (isn’t there always?) that a boy will be born who holds the mythical cure to the curse. On his thirteenth birthday the moon will go blood red for three nights and then it will all be over. Unbeknownst to his mother, Rachel, young Timothy is that boy. The small town they live in is aware of this, and they protect mother and son from the opposing forces that come in the shape of Varek and his pack: Zo, Sonya and Grenier.

This is actually a werewolf movie, hence the title Skinwalkers, though those two beasts are not necessarily synonymous. The plot is fairly straight forward. The good werewolves want to be cured from the curse and they don’t eat people. The bad werewolves want to keep going and they do eat people. The twist there is that once you eat human flesh you get corrupted to the wild side.

The basic premise is pretty thin, but it could work, given that it turns out the leader of the bad wolves, Varek, is actually the brother of the leader of the good wolves, Jonas, as well as the father of the boy he’s looking to kill and the husband of Rachel, so we get a little free Cain-and-Abel action thrown in. So the big question is: with all this, and snarling fights, and guns and knives and fisticuffs and elongated canines… why doesn’t it work?

I like werewolves. I like the idea of the Id run wild, the beast within, and I generally enjoy the working class nature of them. The problem here is that this turns into a shoot-out a few too many times and there’s not enough wolf in these wolves to satisfy me, personally. There’s blood and meat galore, a noble quest and an evil villain, but there’s still next to no dramatic tension. I’ve said before that for these kinds of movies it helps if the actors play it straight, taking their roles seriously. The actors of all this seem to do that, but there’s just not enough meat on the bone and sometimes that just makes the acting… bad. The end result is surprisingly bland and run-of-the-mill pulp horror clichées, though there’s certainly enough sex and violence to satisfy the Id-side of the myth. The actual transformed werewolves don’t really work for me either. There is a reason, beyond the influence of the moon, as to why we never get to see them in direct light.

There is a complete and total lack of pack dynamic to the interaction between the two werewolf cadres that leaves me mystified. Most werewolves on screen travel alone, so there could have been something there to explore, but there’s hardly even any regular interpersonal dynamic and that’s just too bad. The bad guys are traveling on motorcycle, so we could at least have had a little “bad to the bone” moment with all the leather and cut off denim they’re wearing, but instead they come across as four posers who can’t remember weather or not they’ve already racked their shotguns.

The most incredibly stupid plot twist occurs at the very end, though, when the cheap Sarah Connor rip-off Rachel forgives and forgets everything the redeemed and delivered Varek has done in order to travel with him and use their sons blood to cure werewolves any- and everywhere. It’s one of those moments when you have to curb your instinct to throw popcorn at the screen and let out a howl of your own. There are so many things wrong with that notion that I actually won’t bother ranting about it, it’s that bad.

Exposition is generally pretty insulting to this viewer, but even more insulting is superimposing the images of the actors over the transformed werewolves in case you can’t figure out who is who. Again, I have to rein in the impulse to hurl popcorn at the screen. All in all, this is not worth wasting your time on if you want good quality growl for your buck.

Article first published as Movie Review Skinwalkers on Blogcritics.

The Road (2009) – the road in bleak dystopia

The Road (2009) directed by John Hillcoat is based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same title. This is a post-apocalyptic tale of hope and survival near to the bone where life is sweetest, to paraphrase Thoreau. I’m a huge McCarthy fan, which raises the stakes on the what I hope for from the movie, and I know that’s all kinds of foolish and overly optimistic. In this case, though, the movie delivers well enough.

The father is played by an exceedingly thin and haggard-looking Viggo Mortensen and the Boy by Kodi Smit-McPhee. Because these two are the main protagonists a lot rides on the report between them and it works surprisingly well. One of the main themes of this particular story is the love a father has for his son, the lengths he’s willing to go to to keep him alive and safe. Another theme is how to keep your humanity in a world where rape and cannibalism are real options for survival.

The father and the boy leave their home to travel south in a world where everything has died and the temperature keeps dropping. The animals are gone, the vegetation is dying and the sky is darkened by huge ominous clouds. Not only do the survivors have to worry about scavenging humans, they also have to try and stay alive through bitter cold, earthquakes, wildfires and falling trees. No explanations are given as to what actually happened, but it doesn’t really matter. The uncertainty adds to the sense of overall vulnerability of the few survivors that are still “carrying the fire” and trying to be good guys.

The boy’s mother (Charlize Theron) opts out before the man and the boy leave their home to go south. She simply can’t handle it anymore, something the viewer is showed in flashbacks. She does not want to just survive, so instead she walks away, literally. She takes off her hat and coat and heads out into the freezing night, committing suicide by simply giving up. The father can’t follow her, because of the boy, but the threat of murder/suicide looms large over the pair symbolized by a revolver with only two remaining bullets. Death is still better than being raped and eaten and the gun is kept as a kind of talisman to ward off a fate worse than death.

The wondrous thing about all this, no matter how bleak the circumstance, how hostile the environment, is that there are moments of light and hope, like when the pair find a survival shelter full of supplies when they are right at the brink of death by starvation. Every single human being they encounter is a potential threat, though, and that adds to the oppressive mood. On the road they meet many bad people who are trying to kill and eat them, but they also meet an old man (Robert Duvall) who is merely trying to stay alive.

There is also other things to contend with, like the fact that the father starts coughing and keeps getting progressively more ill as they travel on. There is the distinct sense that he only keeps himself alive to keep the boy alive and in that way the boy becomes a symbol for his hope for humanity. It’s all very grim, but the relationship between the boy and the father is still depicted as loving and above all profoundly important as a means of how to stay human, and keep some humanity intact.

This is not a hugely sentimental tale. The dialogue is restrained, the landscape viciously bleak, the characters constantly dwarfed by the mere scale of the devastation and the interaction between them is tinted by that. The only scenes given richness of texture and color and warmth are the dream sequences showing what life was like for the father and mother before the event. They are a startling contrast and serve mostly to exacerbate the horror of the now. They also act as a reminder that the boy was born after disaster struck and therefore has no idea of what life was like before.

The devotion between the father and son is sincere, but there’s no doubt that the father is moribund. The main question seems to be how to retain your humanity when faced with overwhelming odds and how to go on after disaster has struck. All McCarthy’s novels are deeply language driven and The Road is no exception, spare to the point of terseness. It’s difficult to translate that into moving images and not lose something vital, though this does a decent job of that. The color desaturation and the choice of locations, it all helps to give the scale of the destruction. This tale also ends on a strangely hopeful note, in a way. It’s not that anyone is going to live happily ever after, but more that life will go on as long as there are those that are “carrying the fire”. Sometimes that is really the best you can hope for.

All in all this is well worth watching, but it’s not easy fare and it’s not supposed to be, which you are well aware of if you’re familiar with the unrelenting nature of McCarthy’s fiction.

You’ll find what I thought of the book here;

http://librarianmule.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/on-the-road-in-dystopia/

Mule

Article first published as Movie Review: The Road (2009) on Blogcritics.

Stake Land Review

Just to change things up a little…

My latest review of the vampire movie Stake Land (2010) by Jim Mickle can be found and read at Cinema Sentries.

Check it out here:

http://cinemasentries.com/

Teaser:

In a parallel and immediate now, disaster strikes and a pandemic hits the world. Vampires take over, for any given value of that when they actually don’t retain any higher brain function other than the basic predator-feeding instinct. That does not mean they are not extremely dangerous, because they certainly are.

Mule

Stage Beauty (2004) – Shakespearian gender confusion with a side of wit

Stage Beauty (2004) is a costume drama taking place in 1660′s London in the world of theatre where gender roles are confusing to say the least. All female roles on stage are played by men, something that has to do with various preconceived notions on the general moral decay of the world of the stage. Ned Kynaston (Billy Crudup) is the famous, and infamous, main leading lady/man, and his most acclaimed accomplishment is his role as Desdemona in Othello. There are still women at the theatre, but they are relegated to the role of dressers and general dogsbodies, working behind the stage only. Maria (Claire Danes) is one of them. Maria dreams of the stage herself, learning everything she can from Kynaston, all the way down to his gestures and inflection.

I get the sense that a part of the aesthetic behind all this is borrowed from the Shakespeare plays that are so heavily referenced in the story. The stages and costumes and the very showiness of the setting is a bit too much to be considered realistic. The actual performances of the plays within the play are not naturalistic, but rather very formal and contrived. Something of the naturalistic comes through in the very last performance of Othello and Desdemona that Maria and Kynaston give, and it’s done well enough that the entire house is so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. All this is very interesting, in a very art as a symbol for itself and woven through itself and using itself as a metaphor kind of way.

Also, the ban of female actors gets revoked through some very physical convincing from the King’s mistress, Nell Gwynn (Zoe Tapper). The King, played with a kind of decadent whimsy by Rupert Everett, inverts the whole world of the stage by forbidding male actors to perform female roles and thusly pulls the rug out from under the feet of the notorious Kynaston. Maria gets her shot at the stage, and more importantly, at Desdemona.

Through a series of mishaps and miscalculations on Kynaston’s part, he goes from being in the highest honours on the stage, with a noble patron/lover, the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Chaplin), and royal backing since the King is fond of theatre, to living more or less as a drunkard destitute mockery of himself on the less discriminating stages that mostly entertain the lower classes.

There are many themes in this piece, everything from class issues to gender issues and meta structural components that highlight the contrast between modern and post-modern presumptions on the actual playing of a role within a role, to the more rigid ideas of particular gestures adhering to a specific emotion on the restoration stage. It is a game of masks and identities and it could presumably keep a scholar busy for a while, but even with all that intellectual stuff there to keep the mind occupied, there is still something unformed about the central core of the narrative. For me, personally, I think it has to do with the way what happens to Kynaston is presented as a comedy of errors as well as a tragedy. Billy Crudup gives this performance an arm and a leg and a cynical twist that hides a sensitive heart. Clare Danes is good enough to be able to portray an actress who is frankly not always very good, which is difficult in and of itself. If anything the subject matter can be derived at as the malleability of gender and everything that goes with that.

I would have preferred that to be played slightly less for comedic value and more with some kind of serious intent. Take Maria’s performance as Desdemona the first time she does it, for instance. She models her acting completely on Kynaston’s. She is a woman playing a man playing a woman. That is more than complicated enough for me to cringe inwardly when she gets seriously mocked on stage for doing a bad job of it. That is more than enough fodder for thought without it being played for slapstick value. So the wit is occasionally like that of Shakespeare, who had to compare with bear-baiting and decidedly less gentile amusements when he wrote his plays. Presuming he did write them, if we want to be post-modern about the whole thing. The rudeness of the comedy is somehow at odds with what the there could be at the centre of it all this.

It is still well worth watching. The costumes and settings are sumptuous and gritty at the same time, Crudrup’s performance is impressive and there’s a nucleus of doubt about the value of hereto-normative certainties and the sometimes crude wit is entertaining and occasionally cringe-worthy. All that adds up to a slightly confusing, but entertaining spectacle. And that’s good enough for me.

Stage Beauty (2004) directed by Richard Eyre stars Billy Crudup (Ned Kynaston), Clare Danes (Maria), Tom Wilkinson (Betterton), Ben Chaplin (George Villiars, Duke of Buckinham), Hugh Bonneville (Samuel Pepys), Rupert Everett (King Charles II), Richard Griffiths (Sir Charles Sedley), Zoe Tapper (Nell Gwynn), Edward Fox (Sir Edward Hyde).

Article first published as Movie Review Stage Beauty (2004) on Blogcritics.

Irreversible (2002) – “Time destroys everything.” And then some.

Sometimes you watch movies to be entertained, to relax and take a peak into some different mode of living. This is not a movie for those times. Irreversible (2002) is artistically uncompromising, the violence portrayed in it is visceral and difficult to distance yourself from in a way that will most likely leave many a viewer nauseous and ill at ease. It is supposed to, that is the whole purpose.

The story is told in reverse order, starting at its most brutal and bloody point. It is not the catharsis of justified violence that you can sometimes find in action and thrillers. The way the viewer is introduced into the narrative seems so random and incongruous that your curiosity is awakened along with a sense of foreboding, even if things are already about as bad as they can get.

The scene is set for the unraveling of something inevitable. The only question left is what has led up to this point. The key players are Alex (Monica Bellucci) and her boyfriend Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and their friend Pierre (Albert Dupontel) and the bad guy Le Tenia (Jo Prestia). When when enter the action a man has been brutally beaten to death in a local gay fetish club. As the event unfolds themselves in reverse the viewer is led through the inferno of the the club through a mad search through Paris for a man called Le Tenia and further back to the brutal assault on Alex and then even further back to a party and the evening before the party. The end, which is the chronological beginning, is actually a beautiful idyllic setting in a park where Alex is sitting in the sunshine surrounded by children and families, reading a book. The very last scene, the coda which is the beginning in reverse order, states simple “Le temps detruit tout”, time destroys everything. It seems like a pretty trite piece of wisdom, but after having been through the descent into the very nethermost regions of hell and the lowest representation of human nature, it is still poignant.

The camera pans wildly every time the scene is about to change, every time the viewer is taken back one step in time, in a dizzying three hundred and sixty degrees spin. It is not pleasant to watch, rather it becomes a harbinger, something that heightens the sense of dread and foreboding. The reverse order of events also means we start at the meanest, darkest point and move toward lighter better things. That does nothing to soothe the sense that things have gone awry in an irreparable way, that the three main characters lives are never going to be the same, that something has been so badly broken that it can never be put back right again.

That is what the violence does, in this particular narrative. The vicious assault on the lovely Alex, played excellently by Monica Belluci, is definitely one of the most difficult rape scenes I have ever seen. The static camera is unrelenting, as is the violence, and it doesn’t give the viewer any reprieve in a tactful averting of eyes. Not only is the viewer asked to bear witness to the violation, the aggressor Le Tenia also beats Alex to a bloody pulp before he is done with her. It might seem like this could be gratuitous, but the problem, or the brilliance of it, is that it is too realistic, or maybe even naturalistic, to be in any way something that caters to an objectifying gaze.

The resulting chase through the underbelly of the French gay scene in search of Le Tenia shows an increasingly fraying Marcus followed by Pierre, who starts out as trying to be the voice of reason, though that ends up being a terrible miscalculation. The fact of the matter is that revenge is a loser’s game, not surprising, and it’s so utterly pointless in this particular narrative that there really is no reprieve for neither the characters, nor the viewer.

Not all movies mean to tie up everything in a nice big bow of morality and easy lessons. This is a brutal, dark, harrowing tale that shows how something can be so thoroughly broken that it will never be put right and that events can turn even the most unassuming protagonist into what he himself despises. The fact that the story is told with such passion and artistic daring only drives that home. And it is daring to make something as provocative and unpleasant as this, something that intends to upset and nauseate the viewer through its use of camera angles, a grating, harsh soundtrack and an unflinching approach to brutal, sadistic violence.

This is a difficult movie to watch, both in content and in artistic style, and it stays with you once the screen has gone dark. Thought provoking and controversial content means you have to be willing to take on the task of sitting through a narrative that is not going to leave you unmoved, but that is in no way easy fare. If you are willing to do that, though, this movie will richly reward you.

Irreversible (2002) is directed by Gaspar Noé and stars Monica Bellucci (Alex), Vincent Cassel (Marcus), Albert Dupontel (Pierre), Jo Prestia (Le Tenia), Philippe Nahon (L’homme), Stéphane Drouot (Stéphan), Jara-Millo (Concha).

Article first published as Movie Review Irreversible (2002) on Blogcritics.

Winter’s Bone (2010) – It is Life Near the Bone Where It Is Sweetest

The main character of Winter’s Bone (2010), the seventeen-year old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), is as tough as old boot leather. She lives up in the Missouri Ozarks with her mama, who is physically present but mentally absent, her twelve-year old brother Sonny (Isaiah Stone) and her six-year old sister Ashlee (Ashlee Thompson). Her father, Jessup, has been missing for some time and the story begins when Ree gets told that her father has to show up for court or they’re going to lose their house because he put it up to get the bond for the bail money.

It’s well known that Ree’s father cooks methamphetamine and that he’s been in trouble with the law before. Now that he is missing and the immediate safety of her family is threatened, Ree goes looking for him, asking a lot of uncomfortable questions of some very dangerous people.

Ree is shown right from the start as self-sufficient and strong in the sense that she does what has to be done. In her case that means taking care of her mother and her siblings, chopping wood and hunting squirrel and trying to make ends meet. There are poignant instances where Ree is taking her siblings to school and then looking in through the doors of the classrooms with something like longing in her eyes, showing plainly that she knows what she has to give up for her family.

Ree goes in search of her father, talking to relatives and people her father has had dealings with all over the community. She forms an uneasy alliance with her volatile uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes) in trying to get to the truth, though it’s pretty clear right from the get-go that her father is gone for good, if not dead.

One of the more interesting things about this story is that even if the culture is portrayed as predominantly and pretty aggressively patriarchal, the women are given a lot of weight and substance. Most everywhere Ree goes she is greeted at the door by the wives and girlfriends of the men she has to ask questions of, and they are all cast in the same tough-as-nails Cerberus dye. The region’s patriarch Thump Milton (Ronnie Hall) is guarded by his spouse Merab (Dale Dickey), who also delivers an almighty beating to Ree when she won’t stop her investigation.

This is a tale of family, perseverance and doing what has to be done and Ree is undoubtedly a heroine in the most basic and best sense of the word. Jennifer Lawrence gives her portrayal of Ree all the gravitas and subtlety you could hope for, showing both her strength and her weakness, her fear and her deep and abiding sense of loyalty without it ever becoming overly sentimental. This could so easily have tripped into a stereotypical portrayal of degenerate hillbillies and gratuitous poverty porn, but instead each character is shown as doing what they have to do in order to live under extremely harsh conditions. Some manage to rise above their circumstance and some succumb to them. Drugs are in abundance, both as a means of making money and for everyday use and this is presented as a fact of life. The harsh things are snugged up right against the gentle in this tale. The landscape and the color palette shows just how bleak and difficult life is, and it also shows the undeniable haunting beauty of the scarcity of the mountains.

This is a thriller in the best sense of the word. The object is to find out what has happened to Ree’s father, and the viewer is taken along for the ride right up to the inevitable conclusion. What makes this rise above the run of the mill thrillers is that the devil is in the details all the way. The dialogue is sparse, the characters kept true and given context and depth even though they are not explained to death. In amidst of all the violence and danger we are also shown how Ree’s little brother and sister run and play and seem genuinely happy to be together, with no sense that they are deprived of anything essential.

There are visually lyrical moments that underscore the characters themselves without intruding on the story, sometimes in black and white and sometimes in a muted colour scheme that adds to the overall impression created in the narrative. It is gripping and harrowing and reminiscent of true Southern Gothic tales underscored with a sense of almost documentary quality frankness, which makes it well worth watching.

Winter’s Bone (2010) directed by Debra Granik stars Jennifer Lawrence (Ree), Isaiah Stone (Sonny), Ashlee Thompson (Ashlee), John Hawkes (Teardrop), Valerie Richards (Connie), Shelley Waggener (Sonya), Garret Dillahunt (Sheriff Baskin), William White (Blond Milton), Lauren Sweetser (Gail), Dale Dickey (Merab), Sheryl Lee (April), Marideth Sisco (Singer at Party) and Ronnie Hall (Thump Milton). Based on the novel of the same name written by Daniel Woodrell.

Article first published as Movie Review Winter’s Bone on Blogcritics.

The Fighter (2010) – Boxing and Skewed Family Dynamics

Article first published as Movie Review: The Fighter – Boxing And Skewed Family Dynamics on Blogcritics.

The Fighter (2010) is a boxing movie. That means you will be seeing some blood and some violence and some rope jumping and sparring. The more unexpected parts of this is probably the fact that so much time is spent on the family dynamics between the lead character Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his seven sisters, his manager/mother Alice (Melissa Leo) and his drug-addled trainer/brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale). The relationship between Micky and Dicky is fascinating, to say the least. Based on the true story of the welterweight fighter Micky Ward’s life, this is a story more about overcoming difficult circumstance and seeing at which point loyalty stops being admirable and starts becoming a burden.

Dicky Eklund squandered his potential as a boxer through hard living and drugs. As we enter the story we are shown how Micky and Dicky walk down the streets of Lowell, Massachusetts, where they are obviously well-known. They are being trailed by a camera crew that Dicky insists is there to show his come-back to boxing, when in reality the cameras are there to capture the life of a crack addict for HBO. The documentary exists, by the way. It’s called “High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell” (1995). The brothers are treated like local legends, like kings of the street. There’s a little mockery thrown in there, but it’s mostly good natured. Dicky, for all of how much he brags about once knocking down Sugar Ray Leonard, is more infamous than famous at this point.

Micky’s career is handled by his mother and that’s interesting for a lot of reasons, and there’s something there that subtly hints at a family dynamic of epic Classical Greek tragedy proportions. The fact that Micky loses several of the fights we are shown early in the movie due to bad decisions made by Micky’s mother and brother lead up to the inevitable break from the family. Dicky, meanwhile, gets into more trouble than he can handle when he tries to raise money for Micky to be able to train full time. Being that Dicky’s logic circuits are more than a little impaired due to all the crack he’s smoking, he goes about all that backwards, exhorting money and getting into a fight with the police that actually lands him in jail.

Micky meets the bartender Charlene (Amy Adams) and she points out that the management Micky’s been under doesn’t seem to be doing him any favours. At this point Dicky is in jail doing time for various misdemeanours and Micky actually listens to those around him who tell him it might be time for him to distance himself a little from his family to further his career. Eventually Dicky does come out of prison, clean and sober, and he gets involved in Micky’s training again, basically because Micky wants him to.

The actual boxing scenes are shot with the TV-cameras used at the time and that does give them some extra authenticity, this is a cinematic language you understand, if you’ve ever watched boxing. And, unlike other boxing movies, this has a sense of realism to it in little things, like the fact that you can actually knock your opponent out with a body shot. Also, the level of punishment Micky Ward takes in any given fight is astounding, to say the least. And true to life, which is what makes this worth my while. Any victory Micky has is eked out the hard way.

There is plenty of character driven humour in this, which is not all that surprising given the family the movie deals with. The seven sisters who line up and glare disapprovingly at Micky’s new girlfriend, the fact that Dicky thinks he can escape his mother’s notice by throwing himself out of the same second story window of the crack house where he hangs out, the poor harassed father Jack Ward (Jack McGee) who has to wrangle all those women… they all provide moments of some much needed levity, but you won’t end up laughing at them. The comedy is more subtle than that.

Christian Bale is the obvious scene-stealer here. He is doing a truly awesome job with a character that could easily have been simply annoying. You find yourself liking Dicky, sometimes despite himself. Mark Wahlberg’s Micky is the perfect foil for Dicky’s extreme extrovert. Where Dicky is loud, Micky is quiet and restrained. Other reviews make a huge point of Bale’s transformation, but overlook the fact that Wahlberg is thoroughly believable as a professional boxer, and a rightey, at that, when Wahlberg himself is a southpaw. He carries himself like a boxer in an out of the ring, which is no small feat.

What stays with you when you leave the theatre is the Ward/Eklund family and the excellent portrayals of the dynamic and the visceral quality of the actual fights as well as the warmth and humour that bleeds through the actions of the main characters. It is well worth watching for anyone who is the least bit interested in boxing and who doesn’t mind rooting for the underdog.

The Fighter (2010) directed by David O. Russel stars Mark Wahlberg (Micky Ward), Christian Bale (Dicky Eklund), Amy Adams (Charlene Fleming), Melissa Leo (Alice Ward), Mickey O’Keefe (himself), Jack McGee (George Ward), Melissa McMeekin (‘Little Alice’ Eklund), Bianca Hunter (Cathy Eklund), Erica McDermott (Cindy Eklund), Jill Quigg (Donna Eklund Jaynes), Dendrie Taylor (Gail Eklund), Kate B. O’Brien (Phyllis Eklund), Jenna Lamia (Sherri Ward), Frank Renazulli (Sal Lanano), Chanry Sok (Karen) and Caitlin Dwyer (Kasie Ward).