Synopsis
The Fighter (2010) is David O. Russell's boxing drama you can watch online, built around dueling performances from Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale. It draws on what actually happened to junior welterweight Micky Ward, a working-class fighter out of Lowell, Massachusetts.
Between bouts Micky lays asphalt on road crews, and his trainer is half-brother Dicky Eklund, who once went the distance with Sugar Ray Leonard before crack cocaine pulled him into the local crack house instead of the gym. The family pulls Micky every direction: a domineering manager mother (Melissa Leo), a chorus of loud sisters, and bartender girlfriend Charlene (Amy Adams), who is the first to tell him to cut his relatives loose. To reach a title shot, Micky has to choose between blood and a career.
Bale starved himself to a skeletal frame to play Dicky and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor; Melissa Leo took a second statuette home. Russell shot the ring scenes on the same camera rigs HBO used for live broadcasts, so the fights read like an actual sports telecast. Stream The Fighter (2010) online on iFILM.
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