Fighting for yourself

In today’s culture we’ve been waiting for a boxing film that takes not only our breath away but also our hearts. With films like Raging Bull and Rocky, our current generation needed a boxing film that was not only was about fighting and knocking out the douche bag of the film but a film that is about overcoming obstacles.  In David O. Russell’s boxing drama The Fighter, the film is not only about boxing but it deals with brotherhood, doing things on your own, and leaving the past behind.

            In the film the audience sees Micky (played by Mark Wahlberg) trying to be a world champion boxer with the help of his brother Dicky (played by Christian Bale who won an Academy Award for this role), who use to be a prize boxer himself till he got into drugs. With help of their mother, Alice (played Melissa Leo who also received an Academy Award for this role), who is Micky’s manager and is the one who is getting him fights. But the thing is Micky is letting them control his boxing career that has led him to unfair fights that he loses. Also, Micky feels that he has a big shadow over him due to his brother who was a boxing champion and the pride of their hometown.

            When Micky meets Charlene (played by Amy Adams) she convinces him to finally do his own thing, and take control of his own career without the help of his brother and mother.  Micky finally finds himself to be winning fights and taking control of his own life but there is something missing from all of his successes. When he gets his title shot he wants Dicky on his side after Dicky has gotten out of prison and Dicky helps him train to fight for the biggest fight of his life.

            In the end of this film, Micky gives everything he has gone through with himself, his family and the people who have support him the most in the ring. Micky finally has his family together and gives them the biggest gift of all time: moving on. Forgetting the past and letting the past go was a part of Micky’s title fight that gives him not only the title but the hope for a better future.

            The Fighter is not just a boxing film; it’s a film about facing obstacles head on and leaving the past behind for a future of hope and happiness. The Fighter is a film that our generation needed and wanted for a long time; we finally got it through this film.