Quentin Tarantino Says This 91%-Rated Sports Drama Is Already a Classic: 'Just So Magnificent'

Quentin Tarantino is sixty-one years old, and for thirty of those years he has been a constant newsmaker. Not only his new movie, but also every opinion he has about other directors' projects becomes an event.

It is well known that Tarantino loves cinema in all its forms – he watches Marvel movies as well as old-school westerns. But it may come as a surprise to many of the director's fans that he also appreciates sports dramas.

Quentin Tarantino Has Nothing But Praise for David O. Russell's The Fighter

In an interview with Vulture, Quentin admitted that he thinks David O. Russell's The Fighter will still be watched 30 years from now:

“The Fighter or American Hustle – those will be watched in 30 years. [...] The Fighter had impeccable casting. [...] If you look at The Fighter, and you look at those sisters, they're just so magnificent.”

And that opinion is understandable: The Fighter won two Oscars, received high marks from viewers and critics alike, and went down in history as one of the best sports biopics ever made.

What Is The Fighter About?

An unbelievable but true story about the road to the title of world champion boxer Micky Ward, nicknamed Irish.

After a series of failures and defeats, Micky managed to return to the ring when his half-brother Dicky, a former boxer whose career was cut short by cocaine addiction, became his trainer.

With the help of his brother, the love of waitress Charlene, the care of his mother, and an unbending will to win, Ward rose to world fame.

The Fighter Is Not Your Typical Sports Flick

As in other films, David O. Russell is most concerned with the dynamics of relationships in a dysfunctional family. Boxing is only a backdrop, one of the flashpoints in a complex conflict between brothers, fathers and children.

The director shows the unflattering sides of family life – Dicky's drug addiction, conflicts with older family members, and petty crime that force them to overcome their circumstances and pull themselves together.

This is why The Fighter has received such acclaim – it is not just a sports story about the rise to the top, but also a subtle and honest drama.

This Is One of the Best Roles for Both Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg

This intense movie achieved the desired result, of course, thanks to the internal conflict of the two characters – brothers who cannot find common ground and sow discord among numerous family members.

Christian Bale showed an exemplary example of physical transformation – his Dicky looks like a squeezed lemon, ready to fall into the abyss of drug addiction.

Mark Wahlberg, who prepared for the role of Micky Ward with particular care, was no less astonishing – his tenacity and contradictory character give the movie the necessary dynamiс.