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"The Fighter"
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There's enough story left
of TheColumnists.com
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Christian Bale and Melissa Leo won the supporting actor Academy Awards on Feb. 27. This column was written before the Oscar awards show. |
One of the very best movies of 2010--and a contender for the Best Picture Academy Award--is David O. Russell's "The Fighter,"a very moving contemporary drama that just happens to be set in the world of professional boxing.
The true story of boxer "Irish" Mickey Ward and his relationship with his durg-addicted, ex-boxer brother is a grim tale, but an ultimately inspiring one because it really deals with sibling rivalry and one's obligation to one's family, issues that can be crucial in any American family environment.
Ward was never a household name in the boxing world like Muhammad Ali or Rocky Marciano. His time in the national spotlight was brief. But his story was a deeply interesting one. Managed by his domineering mother, Alice, and egged on by his seven sisters, Ward fought for years in the shadow of his much more notorious older brother, Dicky Eklund, the former New England welterweight champ.
Even though Eklund had a less than sensational career--he won 19 fights and lost 10 and seldom fought any nationally-known boxers--he was an admired ring "cutie," a stylist who gave lots of fighters lots of trouble, including the legendary "Sugar" Ray Leonard, who outpointed Eklund in an early fight in Leonard's career, but couldn't knock him out. (Eklund, who scored only four knockouts in all his fights, always claimed he knocked Leonard down in their bout, though others believe Leonard simply slipped to the canvas on his own.)
As the movie suggests, Ward was considered a more routine brawler nowhere as clever a boxer as his colorful brother. The movie concentrates on Ward's efforts to establish his own ring reputation while slowly gaining independence from the heavy influence by his mom, his brother and his nagging sisters. He does this with the help of a girl friend, played in the film by Amy Adams.
There's plenty of drama in the territory the movie covers because the older brother, played by Christian Bale, is a drug addict in constant trouble with the law, and Ward's repellent mother, played by Melissa Leo, always seems to favor him over Mickey, no matter how obnoxious Dicky becomes.
Mark Wahlberg, who plays Ward, does a fabulous job of not only inhabiting the character of this hard-working, confused young man, but of giving a very fair account of himself physically, at times capturing Mickey Ward's rough and tumble boxing style perfectly. Leo, Bale and Adams are are nominated for Oscars in the supporting categories. Wahlberg, who's superb, didn't get a nod from Academy members.
In real life, Mickey Ward turned into one of the toughest club fighters New England ever saw. Fighting out of his hometown of Lowell, Mass., Ward perfected a devastating left hook to the body that was the best of its kind in the game, at any weight. A shot by Ward to the liver could literally paralyze an opponent and he scored many of his 27 knockout victories with those disabling shots to the body while on his way to a 38-13 record.
The movie ends after Ward reaches the championship level, winning the World Boxing Union (WBU) version of the international light welterweight (140 pound) championship. But Ward's place in the record books--and the greatest moments of his 45 years--really came after the time period of the movie comes to an end. There is enough story left to make a really strong sequel, if anybody has the energy to take it on.
In 2002, after Ward had lost his championship and was more or less considered a washed-up box office attraction, he was matched with another fighter on the down side of a once-dazzling career--former IBF super feeatherweight champ Arturo "Thunder" Gatti, an Italian-born Canadian who had come to the U.S. and ;won fame as a knockout sensation who feared nobody. Gatti had most recently moved up in weight and been badly beaten and kayoed by Oscar De La Hoya. Both Gatti and Ward were renowned for their ability to dish out and absorb terrible punishment. They were incredible crowd-pleasers who had never fought each other, so they were matched for a 10-rounder on May 18, 2002.
The result was a classic ring war that was widely acclaimed as "fight of the year" even though it was fought by non-champs no longer considered viable world title contenders. The match was so evenly fought and so vicious that both fighters had to be taken to the hospital for treatment after Ward emerged with the split decision win.
The match, telecast by HBO, was so popular that a rematch was a foregone conclusion once the two battlers had recovered. The second bout the following Nov. 23 was equally furious. Gatti knocked Ward down in the the third round and took the decision, evening the "series," which led to the obvious "rubber match" to settle the issue of who was best. It was scheduled for June 7, 2003. Both fighters had now become major ring stars and the demand for tickets was brisk.
In the third bout, Gatti broke his right hand ini the fourth round, but still managed to eke out a decision win over Ward. Ward had promised to retire if he lost the rubber match--and he did. Gatti, now one of boxing's biggest attractions, went on to win the world light welterweight title before finally being badly battered and knocked out by the undefeated "pound for pound" champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. That loss effectively ended Gatti's career.
But there would be a great movie in how these two rough and tumble brawlers--Mickey WEard and Arturo Gatti--became close friends throughout their ring wars, now considered among the most savage encounters in ring history. After his retirement from active fighting, Ward actually became the trainer for Gatti and was at his side for the rest of Gatti's career.
Such a film--about a friendship that develops between two men whose place in history depends almost wholly on their vicious treatment of each other in the ring--also would have a very dramatic finish: Gatti's stunning death by gunshot in a South American hotel room in 2009. What really happened to Gatti--his wife was briefly considered as a murder suspect--continues to remain a mystery.
"The Fighter" has done well in theaters and an Oscar win, most likely for Christian Bale, could increase the potential for a follow-up film. I'd certainly love to see it.
©2011 by Ron Miller. This column first posted Feb. 21, 2011.
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