When you choose to watch a biographical movie, you must always keep in mind that there is reality, and then there is Hollywood's interpretation of reality. "The Fighter" tells the story of the comeback and ultimate success of junior welterweight boxer Micky Ward, played by Mark Wahlberg. "The Fighter" may be an ordinary sports biography film, but as a boxing movie it's "unusual for the simple reason that it's in favor of the sport"" (Newman and Bell). For 'Irish' Micky Ward, a boxing career is an opportunity to get out of his bad neighborhood in Lowell, Massachusetts, away from his smothering family and achieve a generally better life that will not involve any of the usual traps of movie boxing, such as brain damage, injury, or that one knockout punch too many that leads to a last-scene death in the ring. .
In the film, Micky's older brother Dicky Eklund, played by Christian Bale, has already given up his own shot at a boxing career after his momentary high of knocking down Sugar Ray Leonard. Dicky slid into a serious crack addiction. The film really makes sure that viewers, like me, who are unfamiliar with the sport of boxing, realize that Micky Ward's fighting style is different than other boxers. He seems not to put up a fight and let the other boxer wear himself out, only to deliver devastating blows from the left when the time comes. As a fighting style, Micky's is high-risk for injury, but The Fighter doesn't get into that, and instead focuses on Dicky as the film's ruined, self-abusing character. The film, sadly, is a very true representation of Dicky.
In the movie, we see an HBO camera crew following Dickie around. The true story reveals that this really happened, and it resulted in the HBO documentary High on "Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell," which aired in 1995. The film followed three longtime Lowell, Massachusetts residents, who "exemplified the city's decline from a once thriving manufacturing center to a depressed community littered with empty factories, crack houses and addicts" (Halloran).