Early Spoiler Free Review of "The Fighter" Test Screening

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone recently saw a test screening on May 9, 2010 of an early cut of The Fighter (currently scheduled for release on November 26, 2010). This is the second test screening that we know of thus far of the film (according to Meyers during his February interview on BET's 106 & Park, there was one in January 2010 that went so well they decided to postpone the release of the film from it's original May 21, 2010 release date to November in order to edit a longer cut of the film so it could compete for Oscar awards). This is the first "review" of any kind and its a great one. Travers calls the film "the next great boxing drama, the likes of which cinema hasn't seen since Raging Bull". He goes light on the spoilers and concedes the film is still being edited so things may change but he did like the story, which focuses on the rags to riches tale of Boston local boxer Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg, pictured above) who was trained by his older brother Dicky Ward (Christian Bale, who loses a TON of weight for the part), a former boxer himself who ruined his life due to a cocaine addiction and jail time, but has turned himself around. Micky battled alcoholism and a problematic marriage to his wife throughout his boxing career but achieved fame due to a legendary trilogy of fights with the now deceased champion welter weight boxer Arturo "Thunder" Gatti, played by Michael Reese Meyers in the film. The plot focuses mostly on the Ward brothers, their relationship, their struggles, and what led to the trilogy. Meyers, according to Travers, is good in the film and in some scenes "looks almost identical to Gatti". Travers does add that Meyers is "underused" and "Gatti is painted as the media fan favorite whom we root against, and unlike his Acadamy Award nominated role as Elvis Presley in the Johnny Cash biopic Ring of Fire in 2005, we never get to know Gatti too much, he is merely the villain preventing our hero, Ward, from glory". You can read the rest of his review HERE. For those who are unfamilair with boxing or this trilogy of fights, HBO.com has a video that quickly highlights what it was all about:

Tidbit: Meyers and Wahlberg play welter weights in the film. Welter weight boxers normally weigh between 170 and 180 lbs. Both Meyers and Wahlberg needed to weigh within that range for filming. Meyers, normally around 150 lbs., did boxing training for 5 and a half months from March 2009 to August 2009 and put on 25 lbs. of muscle, weighing about 175 lbs. in preparation for the October/November 2009 shoot. Wahlberg, who normally weighs around 215 lbs. had to slim down and lose around 35 lbs. Oddly, Meyers in the middle of training, accepted the role in Inception at the last second (replacing Cillian Murphy who left the project unexpectedly when his play extended its stage run) and left to film Inception in Vancouver and various other locations for 5 weeks from late August til the end of September. He would film during the day and work out at night (and sometimes vice versa). In October he resumed his boxing and weight training and filmed his part in The Fighter in late October and most of November in Boston.