The Fighter 2010

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: A great boxing movie, a great film about family. Gritty, thrilling, inspirational. Deserves multiple Oscar nominations. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: 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. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: The Fighter is at its most interesting as a comeback story about people who've seen too many comeback stories... Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: With solid bodywork, clever feints and tremendous heart, it scores at least a TKO, by which I mean both that it falls just short of overpowering greatness...and that the most impressive thing about it is technique. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: [Wahlberg's] modest performance is the one element that feels truly authentic and heartfelt. The role plays to his strengths: a rough-and-tumble earthiness, the ability to suggest a dreamer lurking beneath the exterior of a bruiser. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The movie has so much texture that once it gets you, you're good and got. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: While the film handles itself well in the ring, it's brilliant in the arena of a blue-collar family that brutalizes its younger son and best hope for worldly success in the name of sustaining him. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Wahlberg gives a deceptively low-key performance as the movie's still point, perfectly setting off the crackling fuse that is Bale's Dicky, a grinning strutter who knows he's screwed up but can't quite say goodbye to the limelight. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: The Fighter doesn't try to upend the genre, but it's a reminder of how satisfying these movies can be when they're done right. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: "The Fighter" easily could have slipped into boxing-film cliches, but Russell doesn't let that happen. Instead, it lands its hardest blows while chronicling the struggle of a family, which is a far more interesting fight. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: At its punchy, profane best, "The Fighter'' struts along the line between melodrama and comedy. Read more

Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine: A slim film that carries itself like a champion. In this Oscar season, it's a boxer elevating his stats by taking down weaker competition. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: What really holds this together is Wahlberg's low-key, firmly internalized performance as a man torn between his loyalty to the clan and his responsibility to himself. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: It feels like it comes from real life as well as the movies. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Only Amy Adams, playing Micky's tough-tender girlfriend Charlene, manages to be convincingly working-class without seeming either dopey or rabid or strung-out. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: This is polished entertainment with a little edge, a juicy urban fable for grown-ups. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: The Fighter is so muscularly and tenderly good because it trains its eye on the matches that take place between kin. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: There's a certain predictability to The Fighter, yet that's part of the appeal of the fight genre. This one, as thoughtful as it is rousing, scores a TKO. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: The movie initially feels like more of a near thing than the filmmakers anticipated, but as in boxing it's only the final decision that counts. Read more

David Ansen, Newsweek: The suspense isn't just about who's going to win the big fight, but who's going to emerge from Ward's big, fierce jungle of a family with their lives intact. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: Takes a heavy swing at us, and misses. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: As a film, "The Fighter" is a sturdy, solid slugger - but not quite a champ. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: By far the most rousing, expertly cast movie this year... Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Pity the boxing movie that thinks it can be both "Raging Bull" and "Rocky." Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: These are characters so repulsive that it's hard to care what happens to them, but it's to the credit of a superb cast that you do end up caring. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: The Fighter is funny, ferocious, sad, sweet, pulpy, and violent. Sometimes, all in the same minute. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Because we aren't deeply invested in Micky, we don't care as much as we should, and the film ends on a note that should be triumph but feels more like simple conclusion. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: The Fighter, its heart full to bursting, is an emotional powerhouse that comes close to spilling over. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Russell has taken a tale of mythic American redemption and one of those Hollywood screenplays with four credited writers and somehow made a movie so rousing, so real and so full of complicated emotions that it all feels brand-new. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "The Fighter" is entertaining from beginning to end and contains two brilliant and extreme supporting performances that are among the year's best. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Russell has always excelled at finding new ways to use familiar actors, and every performance in The Fighter is noteworthy if not outstanding. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "The Fighter" is a great, gutsy boxing story, a knowingly detailed, compelling, often very funny look inside the lives of underdogs battling for respect. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Makes too many concessions to the Hollywood judges, pulls too many punches. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: You may not physically experience the punches that rain upon Mark Wahlberg's dogged pro boxer "Irish" Micky Ward, but it feels as if you do. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: Wahlberg has the requisite tough physicality, but his emotional take on Micky is pleasingly delicate. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: A flawed, frequently ludicrous but overwhelmingly likeable film, old-school to the core and none the worse for it. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Bale is astounding as a strangely charismatic weasel, giving probably the best performance of his career. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: If The Fighter feels like kind of a mess, lurching from one scene to the next as if the film itself has taken a few hits to the head, that's not entirely a bad thing. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: After a volatile first half, Micky eclipses Dicky, and The Fighter settles into a predictably rutted narrative arc. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: A tough, bare-knuckled, compassionate meditation on every family's rope-a-dope between tribal bonds and self-definition. Both, it turns out, are worth going to the mat for. Read more