Just saw the movie “The Fighter.” It's a powerful movie demonstrating resurrection through family, with solid acting that brings to life a well-developed portrait of the relationship between brothers, who could not be more different in term of appearance and temperament.
Drenched with sweat, cotton t shirt bursting with muscles, Wahlberg looks every inch a a boxer (which is one of his real-life hobbies), while his brother looks like he’s been to hell and back. That’s where the movie derives its power, because Bale’s character isn’t really on a path to success, and has no real shot at resurrection on his own. But with his refusal to face reality, he keeps ruining other people’s lives and shooting himself in the foot, even as he acts superior to everyone else with the bravado only an egotistical junkie could muster. I guess family is family.
Bale has already adopted this pared down look for movies like “The Machinist." I’d say he’s doing the reverse of what De Niro did when packed on 60 pounds in his Oscar winning portrayal of the boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. (Actually, the Raging Bull comparison is apt, given that Raging Bull is another classic boxing movie, though inferior to Rocky in terms of watchablity and popcorn cult status. It will be interesting to see where The Fighter falls into the mix.) But I doubt Bale had 60 pounds to lose for this movie, or even 6.
He looked good in Batman -- lean, of course, because that’s his physique -- but also buff. Plus, we’re used to seeing him in movies like American Psycho wearing Armani tuxedoes, which accentuate his slender look and show him to his best advantage, and not t shirts and Adidas jackets. Incidentally, isn’t Bale great at these disgusting roles? Here he is portraying yet another sleazy character. Which leads us to question -- especially after all those reports from the set of Terminator Salvation -- whether or not Bale is simply a sleazeball himself. Ha! JK, Christian! It's easy to see the lure of playing a character like the morally ambiguous The Dark Knight. (That gravelly voice.)
As I said, based on their t shirt wearing aptitude alone (not to mention their facial features), these guys do not look like brothers, but that accentuates the sibling rivalry. Anyway, it’s questionable whether or not Wahlberg is really a t shirt person at all. Go back to his days as a Calvin Klein underwear model and you’ll know what I mean. It’s amazing that he avoided being pigeonholed and has forged such a good steady Hollywood career and is in solid movies like this – one with Oscar buzz.
Mazal tov to you, Marky Mark, on a great career.
Mockery aside, it would be cool to see what Bale would look like in the upcoming Batman 3 movie, “The Dark Knight Rises” if he were wearing this Batman t shirt. At least he could put it on between takes.
