I'm quittin' Charlene. I'm done fightin', I don't need it any more.

The Fighter

Director: David O. Russell (Three Kings, I heart Huckabees - incidentally he also produced Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy)

Screenplay by: Scott Silver (x-men Origins, 8 Mile) , Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson

Story by: Keith Dorrington, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson

Cinematographer: Hoyte van Hoytema (Not a famed hollywood cinematographer, I believe The Fighter is his first hollywood film but he got a lot of praise for 2008's Let The Right One In)

Cast: Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, Amy Adams Melissa Leo

Is this film worth your time? Yes, and probably more than once too.

If there was one person who wasn't going to like The Fighter it was me. Yes, Christian Bale is a genius, but I had never really warmed up to him (granted I have a long way to go on his filmography). I also never thought Mark Wahlberg was a particularly special actor and was vehemently opposed to his nom for The Departed. (Yes, I still quote his lines, who can forget such classic Staff Sgt. Dignam lines as "I'm the guy who does his job, you must be the other guy" and "Maybe, maybe not, maybe fuck yourself"). And girl, don't get me started on that uninspired title. Seriously? "The Fighter"?... On top of all this, a "Biographical Sports Film" about boxing didn't exactly sound like my cup of tea. Which is why, as I watched the opening scenes of The Fighter, I was shocked to find myself quickly and deeply absorbed into this film. And now, I practically go door to door asking people to watch and re-watch it.

The Fighter tells the story of boxer Micky Ward and just as much, his half-brother Dicky Eklund, as Micky tries to disentangle himself from his family's hold over his professional success and restore his shaken self-confidence and Dicky grapples with his drug addiction and an unwavering dedication to helping his brother succeed, in his own way.

Now here is a little secret I discovered about this film near the very beginning: this film is designed to make you feel as if you are living every part of the story. This realization made watching it an even bigger treat than it otherwise would have been. In every single scene, the director left me in awe of how masterfully everything was crafted so as to allow the audience to live the moment, to be lost in the story.