Wahlberg - a new kid that packs a punch

SIDELINE CUT:Big-hearted noisy boxing movies never go out of fashion but the surprising thing about The Fighteris that Mark Wahlberg, as the star turn, is the quietest presence in the film, writes KEITH DUGGAN

GIVE an actor a sniff of a boxing role and he will immediately go for broke. For decades, Hollywood stars have been playing astronauts without making a visit to the moon as part of their necessary preparation. They are also quite happy to sign up for war films without doing a tour of Eye-raq. But ask a leading man to dawn a gumshield and a pair of gloves and he won’t be happy until he spends more hours in the ring than Mike Tyson.

Mark ‘Marky Mark’ Wahlberg is the latest thespian in a staggering list of Tinseltown heavyweights who have stepped into the ring down the years. Big-hearted noisy boxing movies never go out of fashion but the surprising thing about The Fighter is that Wahlberg, as the star turn, is the quietest presence in the film.

You almost have to be old enough to remember Wahlberg in his previous life as the brattish pin-up from New Kids on the Block and a ubiquitous presence in Calvin Klein trunks to appreciate what he has become: an actor drawn to brooding and understated roles who looks as if he is going to get better with age. Few would have predicted that turn for the street urchin turned pin-up in the early days. But The Fighter was Wahlberg’s turn to lay claim to a beefy leading role and also join the roll call of thespians who have felt compelled to bring their thing to the fight game.

As a working class and troubled Bostonian, Wahlberg identified with the graft and grit story of Micky Ward and in his publicity interviews ahead of the film, we learned about the lengths he went to not just reflect Ward's personality but to make sure he did him justice with the fight scenes. The actual filming of The Fighterwas whipped together quicker than most quality television commercials but Wahlberg had been driving the project for the previous five years and spent most of that time honing his skills as a boxer, taking constant sessions and often heading off to the gym for dawn sparring sessions before turning up to work on other film projects. He wanted to make sure that the fight scenes were realistic.

And how could he not? One of the impossibilities of sports films is to try and present the actual sports scenes in a authentic light and boxing films have always come in for particularly tough reviews in terms of their veracity. Old Bob De Niro’s turn as Jake La Motta has made stepping into the ring a daunting proposition for any actor. But since then, egos and talents of all shapes and sizes, from Will Smith as Ali to Russell Crowe as Jim Braddock to Denzel Washington in The Hurricane, have all done their time dancing in front of the heavy bag. And making a decent fist of it is no guarantee of success.

In 1988, Mickey Rourke and his quiff starred in Homeboy, in which he played a fight man so resolutely blue collar that it he all but wore his denim jacket in the ring. When he wasn't getting pounded, he was getting hammered, wandering about in a daze to the sound of Clapton guitar solos and generally falling through the cracks of life: here was a boxer so down on his luck that he was forced to hire Christopher Walken as his manager. Least he didn't end up wrestling for a living. And the film disappeared more or less without trace – Bull Durhamwas the big sports film that year and Rourke was out of fashion and so he disappeared from the silver screen for a time to actually become a fighter, discovering that it was every bit as punishing and lonely as most boxing films portray.

The Fighter, which manages to fall between the corny glory of the Rockyfilms and the absolute griminess of Shameless,is winning fans across the globe. But it is hard to know if this is for its fight scenes or because of the raucous and sometimes funny rows that fill the days for the dysfunctional Ward-Ecklund families. Ward's brood of sisters are both hilarious and ghastly but sitting in the film theatre listening to the guffaws that greeted their general backwardness, it was hard not to wonder what the real sisters, presumably still living in Lowell, feel about how they are being portrayed in screens across the world.

And Ward’s half-brother gives Christian Bale the chance to literally act the Dick for the duration of the film, hamming it up as an unconscionable crack-head still living in the twilight world of a long forgotten bout with Sugar Ray Leonard. Bale is clearly having the time of his life during the show and Melissa Leo, who plays Alice, also lights up the screen as a pure horror show of a domineering mother. It is hard to understand, though, how she managed to produce such a regular and decent working-class hero type as Micky among a brood of spectacular misfits.

But while all the others ham it up Wahlberg’s duty is to fight hard, get the girl (he is, after all, Marky Mark) and to throw punches that look at least halfway real.

There are many curious things about The Fighter. It is strange – but perhaps commendable – that they made a film set in Lowell without mentioning Jack Kerouac. It is also odd that they didn't use the Dropkick Murphy's singular tribute to Micky Ward, The Warrior's Code. And, to the annoyance of all boxing fans, the trilogy of fights that Ward fought with Arturo Gatti in the late 1990s are relegated to screen note status at the very end of the film. Such was the quality of the first fight that both men earned a purse of over a million dollars for the second instalment, a staggering payment for Ward, whose career was defined by hustling for small pay-outs. The film should arguably have been about that fight – and the sinister death of Gatti a few years afterwards.

But the box office health of the film means that they could well save the Gatti story for the sequel. The Fighteris old-fashioned entertainment that plays loose with the truth and in the end, nobody gets hurt. If there is anyone to feel sorry for, it is Wahlberg. He has the least rewarding role in the whole show. There was a rumour that Brad Pitt was supposedly lined up to play the twitchy, fiendish Dick before Bale took the role. Had that happened, it could have been a very different film because Bale's manic energy demands so much wattage that he kind of dazzles Marky Mark out of the picture.

It is a pity because in the long and varied history of Hollywood’s men getting punchy, Wahlberg doesn’t do a bad job. And it was tough that he didn’t at least get an Oscar nod. He probably wouldn’t have won but he cudda been a . . .