The Fighter

I'll add a few things to Neil's comment about this great movie: Wahlberg's love interest was played by Amy Adams who I believe is a female version of Phillip Seymour Hoffman in her ability to play a variety of different roles. She played a little innocent girl in Catch Me if You Can as well as one of the young nuns in Doubt (which actually features Hoffman as a priest). Adams plays an experienced young woman who is tough and has seen it all in this movie. Like Hoffman she is able to convincingly play contrasting personalities in a way which doesn't make you think she's trying too hard. I like watching her alot.

I also liked The Fighter. How can you not like it?

The Fighter

Good all around boxing movie here. You could probably kind of guess the plot line if you've seen the trailers or heard anything about this movie. No real surprises here, though Christian Bale is very scary in how much he resembles a real addict. Mark Wahlberg is pretty sympathetic as well.

What separates this from simply being a Rocky cover song is how messed up and dysfunctional the main character's family is. The dysfunction is not drawn out in an exploitative, my mother's a crack whore kind of way, but in a more believable, working class kind of way, where no one wants to be the one who lets the family down. Seems like they really got the gritty details and the extras straight off the streets of Boston too.

Four out of Five stars for this one.