"The Fighter" doesn't bring anything new to the boxing picture genre — but it's packed to the gills with all that reminds us why such movies enthrall.
Muhammad Ali once said that through the exchange of pain a man knows that he's a man. In that vein, "The Fighter" gets the viewer in touch with being human, albeit with the vulnerable, disorderly and secretive side of our nature — and the sight isn't pretty. Confronted with the chaotic mess of existence, we know that we are after all, people — capable of doing great damage and sinking into sewage. Or as "The Fighter" portrays, some of us have the potential of real-life boxer Dicky Eklund, who took blow after blow of bone-crushing humiliation until in a freak moment he landed a legendary left hook when his opponent was least expecting it.
Eklund rose briefly to fame only to crash and burn in the ring, and he casts a long shadow over "The Fighter." The title could really be talking about him instead of the film's real star and Eklund's half brother, "Irish" Micky Ward.