What The Fighter is at root is a very cliched sports movie which ticks all the boxes -hero from a difficult background, initial defeat, gradual overcoming of adversity to eventual triumph snatching unlikely victory from the jaws of defeat. There's nothing particularly new or surprising here. The boxing scenes themselves are generally pretty well handled with the clanging exception of one awful montage scene.
What does raise this above the average are the performances and a script that peppers the true story with enough humour and pathos to keep it going. Christian Bale is garnering all the plaudits for his transformation into Dicky Ecklund (crack-addicted, former boxer, older brother of the hero) and now seems a likely winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar (in reality the part os almost co-lead). He's a hard character to like and can come across as rather irritating. Its only in the closing credits that you realise how close he comes to the original. Mark Wahlberg's much quieter performance as the true lead has been much less heralded but is no less good.
As to the women, Melissa Leo has been picking up the awards as the matriarchal head of this highly dysfunctional family. Leo is an actress I highly rate (see Frozen River for evidence), but her character here is litttle more than caricature in leopard skin and bouffant hair-do. Amy Adams (also nominated) is better as Wahlberg's barmaid girlfriend, but still doesn't have a whole character to work with. Neither should win the Supporting Actress oscar - one of them probably will.
That said what The Fighter is is a well made, entertaining and, at times, moving film. Its just not all that its cracked up to be.
Overall - 7/10 Underneath the hype is a solid, effective movie lifted by some great performances.
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