The Fighter (2010) ****1/2

This is another awards-season film from several years ago that I let slip by me. My mistake. David O. Russell's “The Fighter” is a boxing classic on par with “Rocky.” The film is based on the life of welterweight boxer “Irish Micky” Ward, but if, like me, you aren't familiar with Ward's career, I would suggest watching the movie before reading anything about him.

The film tells the story of Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his half-brother Dicky Eklund. Dicky (Christian Bale) is also a boxer, a local legend known for having once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard. Dicky is a mess now, a skinny crack addict with bad teeth. He is supposed to be helping his brother train, but he is completely unreliable. Ward doesn't fare much better with his manager, his mother, Alice (Melissa Leo), who seems mostly interested in getting what she can for herself and Dicky out of Ward's fights.

Ward is on a string of losses, partly due to poor management and training, when he meets Charlene (Amy Adams), a bartender and college dropout. Alice and Ward's sisters immediately dislike Charlene, partly because she is just slightly classier and smarter than them, mostly because she threatens their control over him and his career. Under Charlene's influence, Ward starts to realize that what his family wants may not be what's best for him.

I don't want to give away any more of the story. It's too good. I don't know how much poetic license Russell took with Ward's life, but he crafted one hell of a story. Christian Bale is an amazing actor, unafraid to transform his body for a role. With his skeletal face and bad teeth, he looks as much the crackhead as Pookie from "New Jack City."  Mark Wahlberg is no Tom Hanks, but he uses his limited acting range well. Melissa Leo won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for this role, although it's a bit tougher to appreciate her largely unsympathetic character.

It's a great cast telling a great story about working-class dreams. Comparisons to “Rocky” are inevitable. Both films tell the story of a boxer fighting his way up from the bottom with the help of a good woman. “Rocky” has the more rousing narrative arc, while “The Fighter” is more realistic, which makes sense given that the latter film is based on a true story. It's amazing how satisfying a story Russell creates without straying too far from the facts. “The Fighter” should join films like “Rocky” and “Raging Bull” in the pantheon of great boxing movies.

4.5 stars out of 5

The Wild Bunch (1969) ****

It took me a little while to get into Sam Peckinpah's gritty, Western classic. This tale of aging outlaws trying for one last score doesn't immediately provide you with anyone to root for. The outlaws are not your Butch and Sundance kind of gentleman robbers. Pike Bishop (William Holden), Dutch (Ernest Borgnine), and their gang are mostly crude, callous, and bloodthirsty. Some of the gang are racist towards Angel (Jaime Sanchez), the Mexican member of the crew, and suggest double-crossing him. When an injured gang-member can't ride, they give him a quick death and ride on. These men do have a code of sorts, but they abandon it, and each other, when it suits them.

The men assigned to catch these outlaws are no better. A bunch of filthy, greedy bounty-hunters, they carelessly engage in a gunfight while the outlaws are surrounded by innocent bystanders, slaughtering more townspeople than robbers. When the fight is over, their only concern is to claim bounties and pick over the bodies for loot. The only decent one among them is Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), a former outlaw who has agreed to hunt his former partners in exchange for parole.

As the movie went on, though, I began to appreciate these characters, with all their flaws, and to see why the film is considered a classic. The flaws in these characters translate into an unusual level of realism for films in the sixties and even today. It's fun to watch outlaws like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but real train robbers were probably socially maladjusted, unreliable, racist killers like the Wild Bunch. Real bounty hunters probably weren't much better than the outlaws they hunted, either. Both were ready to kill for money at the drop of a hat.

Time is running out for all of these men. The West is becoming less wild by the day, and they are looking down the barrel of a future that has no place for rugged gunslingers on horseback. In Mexico, the men see an actual motorcar, and on the trail they discuss the new flying machines they have heard about. In most westerns, the coming of the modern world would be treated as a sad thing, but as Sam Peckinpah presents these men, it will be hard to mourn them when they go the way of the dinosaurs.

Peckinpah also intended “The Wild Bunch” to be a commentary on the Vietnam War. In Mexico, the outlaws find themselves in the middle of a civil war that they cannot understand, much less control. When a village is plundered, you can flip a coin to decide if the attackers were government troops or Pancho Villa's revolutionaries. The outlaws are well-armed, on good horses, but in the Mexican desert, the indigenous locals can take them unawares at any time.

Having established his characters' many flaws, Peckinpah eventually gets us to root for them when they support Angel in his efforts to protect his Mexican village. We also come to like these outlaws a little through the intimate moments we spend, seeing them laugh or struggle with what conscience they have. In these moments of chit-chat and humor, “The Wild Bunch” anticipates movies like “Pulp Fiction,” where crime and action are mixed with moments of genuine conversation, where every line doesn't feel scripted. In the end, Peckinpah allows the Wild Bunch, even the worst of them, to have some honor.

“The Wild Bunch” won't charm you immediately like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (which also came out in 1969), but stick with it, and you'll see why this film deserves its reputation as one of the great Westerns.

4 stars out of 5