THE FIGHTER

I wish Christian Bale would make up his mind so that I can make up my mind.

It seems that every other movie I see him in he's either brilliant (THE MACHINIST) or he just mails it in and doesn't even try (TERMINATOR: SALVATION). But either way, he's dropped far off the list of actors I'll see a movie just based on their presence alone.

Which brings us to THE FIGHTER which I really loved. You put a gun to my head and told me to pick the ten best movies I've seen this year and this would be on the list. It may not crack the Top 5, but it's up there. It was a great story that was made even better by the performances and there wasn't a weak one in the bunch. That's usually the case when it comes to David O. Russell movies though. He likes to stack the deck in his favor (as every director should) to strengthen the picture. I've never bought in to directors that have such an enormous ego that they feel they can work with shitty actors and still make a great movie. Granted there are a few that can do that, but they're few and far between. But I'm getting away from the point here.

The bottom line is that Bale turns in a truly great performance and one that, after seeing the short interview with the real Dicky Ecklund, he nailed. Everyone else was top notch too, and for a story that could have been bogged down in far too much drama for its own good, Russell knows how to inject the perfect amount of humor into the situation.

And, let's be honest, who doesn't love hearing the princess from ENCHANTED cursing like a sailor. Amy Adams gets better with every movie (the ones that I see anyway, since I stay away from her bullshit romantic comedies) and she's just fun to watch onscreen. And Mark Wahlberg plays the Mark Wahlberg character in every movie but he does an excellent job with it.

One of my favorite things about the movie was that during the fight scenes, they used an old school TV look to add to the intensity. It made me remember the days when people actually cared about boxing as a sport and it wasn't being killed in huge chunks by MMA dorks and their Afflictions t-shirts.

Sorry. Getting off topic again. The bottom line is that you should see THE FIGHTER if only to watch Christian Bale jump out a window so his mom doesn't catch him at the crack house. Because that happened like three times throughout the movie and was funny every single time.