Overall The Fighter is a touching, soulful knockout of a movie.

| Original Score: A | Sep 9, 2017

Both Wahlberg and Bale are excellent in their different registers, as are Melissa Leo and Amy Adams as the differently calibrated women.

| Feb 7, 2011

Wahlberg, always so physically solid, is deep inside himself in this role.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 4, 2011

The Fighter looks at first as if it is going to be a far more interesting movie than the straightforward and even rather undemanding drama we finally get.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2011

Russell throws so much at the screen that there is little time to make your mind up.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2011

[A] rickety, unfocused contraption of a film that sputters and chugs along without offering any hint of why its director thought it was worth making.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2011

The film bounces us from one pugilistic or domestic affray to the next, only coming to a near-standstill whenever Wahlberg gets acting space. It goes to show.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 2, 2011

A flawed, frequently ludicrous but overwhelmingly likeable film, old-school to the core and none the worse for it.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 2, 2011

Two very different but equally powerful performances combine to deliver an exhilarating fight-flick that, like its scrappy central character, is impossible not to root for.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 31, 2011

The flaw at The Fighter's heart is the fact that Bale's all over the place. It's a frog-faced, flailing-armed, look at meeee performance that, had it come from Nicolas Cage, would have drawn scorn across the board.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 31, 2011

The Fighter is full of powerful scenes and performances, but in the end, like the character of Micky, it's a bit annoying.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 21, 2011

Though director David O Russell does embrace the feel-good cliches embedded into movie folklore by Rocky, he does so with a rousing conviction that pushes all the right buttons.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 20, 2011

Ward's story may unfold in the manner of many sports biopics but The Fighter's more about the complex familial ties that bind than it is about the sweet science itself.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 23, 2010

I suspect that over time The Fighter will accrue a cult following among boxing aficionados as a rare film that got the sport they love right.

| Original Score: B | Dec 21, 2010

While the boxing is phenomenal, breathlessly staged to the point there were times I could swear I felt Mickey's devastating left hook slam into my jaw, it is the twisted and complex family drama that makes this film such an astonishing piece of work.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 18, 2010

Makes too many concessions to the Hollywood judges, pulls too many punches.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 17, 2010

The Fighter is so muscularly and tenderly good because it trains its eye on the matches that take place between kin.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 17, 2010

A great boxing movie, a great film about family. Gritty, thrilling, inspirational. Deserves multiple Oscar nominations.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 17, 2010

It's audacious, it's fun, it's rowdy, and it's just twisted enough to always be interesting. Beyond that, it's one of the year's best acting showcases and likely to grab multiple Oscar nominations.

| Original Score: A | Dec 17, 2010

As Albert Einstein said when he scribbled E=mc2 on the back of a Princeton bar napkin, "sometimes formulas work."

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Dec 17, 2010