Triumphant boxing movies never go out of style.

As a blue-collar and troubled resident of Lowell, MA, Wahlberg portrayed all the grit in the tale of Micky Ward and in his publicity interviews ahead of the movie, we discovered the lengths he went to not just to reflect Ward’s personality but to make sure he did him justice with all the fight scenes. Wahlberg worked hard at honing his abilites as a boxer by spending long in hours in boxing gyms becoming as close to the real thing as possible. The movie, which manages to fall among the corniness of your Rocky Balboa movies as well as the absolute griminess of your favorite indy flick, is winning audiences across the planet.

All of these factors equal box office success. The Fighter is old-school entertainment that plays loose with reality and in the end does nobody any harm. If there is any person to feel sorry for, it’s Wahlberg. He has the least rewarding part in the whole movie. There was a rumour that Brad Pitt was supposedly lined up to play the twitchy, fiendish Dick prior to Bale taking the role. Had that happened, it could of been an extremely different movie.