Learn on the scary subject of mark here – Mark Wahlberg comes up a winner with “The Fighter”

“My new regimen consists of a bottle of red wine and a lot of food,” the actor jokes, “and I’m enjoying myself, but my wife is, like, ‘you’re starting to look really bad.’” It has been a rare event when, as an adult, Mark Wahlberg has looked bad. And as “The Fighter” debuts on Friday in major U.S. cities, it is looking very good with Oscar buzz and solid reviews working in its corner. A troubled teenager who landed in jail, Wahlberg turned around his life as an entertainer, first as a rapper with Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, then as a Calvin Klein model when his rock-hard abdomen became the envy of both men and women. Russell’s ” The Fighter ,” opening Friday and already generating awards buzz, rekindles Hollywood’s long love affair with pugilists. The movie initially feels like more of a near thing than the filmmakers anticipated, but as in boxing it’s only the final decision that counts. Russell so deftly weaves the family’s story that we, too, are initially seduced by Dicky. Christian Bale plays his half brother, Dickie Eklund, who had been a fighter himself, only to fall into drugs. The quick shooting schedule gives the picture a ragged, real- time feel. Russell , who had directed him in “Three Kings” and “I Heart Huckabees,” to make this Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson script (which inevitably streamlines and simplifies Ward’s life), his first time behind the camera in six years.

As a former contender who blew his shot at success thanks to a crack addiction, Bale, like the movie itself, bobs and weaves, jumps around, goes low and then high and seems to be made out of liquid. Both were tough kids, and Wahlberg followed the career of Ward, who is about six years older than the actor. Aside from his boxing prowess, the heart of Ward’s story and what makes it worth a film is the involvement of his intense, close-knit family, especially erratic half-brother Dicky Eklund ( Christian Bale ), who helped train him, his flinty mother Alice ( Melissa Leo ), who managed him, and Charlene ( Amy Adams ), the attractive young woman he has his eye on.

You can’t get a bead on him, but you can’t take your eyes away. Though his beloved older brother is supposed to be in charge of preparations, Dicky is much more interested in taking drugs and clowning for an HBO film crew that is following him around for what he thinks will be a film on his comeback. Russell’s movie takes a roundabout way of telling its true story, from the early 1990s, of 31-year-old amateur welterweight Micky Ward (a terrific Mark Wahlberg), who stays true to his working-class life in Lowell, Mass. , while aiming for the big time. Compared with more popular sports such as baseball, football and basketball, boxing’s action “takes place in a more simplified arena,” says Stephen Farber, a film critic and historian. Leo doesn’t sugarcoat Ward’s mother, who views Micky as the family’s meal ticket. When that happens, his career turns around. “The Fighter” has scored an 84 percent positive rating at review website Rottentomatoes.com, and movie fans on companion website Flixster give it a 79 percent positive rating.