There are some actors who would do anything for their craft. Their efforts are all in the screen, where we can see them act in flaming capital letters written across the screen. Then there are actors who disappear so much into their roles, we don’t even think of their appearance in the film as acting at all – until they get that big shiny Oscar statuette next year. Mark Wahlberg is The Fighter is in a category of his own: an actor who disappears so much into his role as a boxer so that everyone else in the cast can act with flaming capital letters, so much so that it’s his supporting cast that will get the Oscar nominations. The runner up prize for Wahlberg? A few ‘best ensemble acting’ nods from the lesser awards.

But in a way, that’s a fitting prize for the fighter in The Fighter. According to this biopic, Mickey Ward was for most of his career as a professional fighter living under the very huge shadows of his half-brother and mother. Dick Ecklund (Christian Bale) decades ago knocked out Sugar Ray Leonard in his one moment of glory and now takes charge of training the younger brother for a better boxing career, with mom (a feisty Melissa Leo) doing the wheeling and dealing of contracts. It’ll be ideal if not for the fact that Dick is addicted to drugs, irresponsible, and generally incompetent – but not as incompetent as their redneck Nascar mom. And not counting their seven sisters who make Cinderella’s stepsisters look like polite upper class ladies.

And in his fight to the top, little Mickey will have to learn the painful lesson of standing up for his own, Dicky will have to go on a redemptive journey to regain that sense of brotherhood and trust from a hurt brother and town, and mom needs to learn to listen to the voice of others for a change.

Seriously, this type of story is dime a dozen. What makes it worth our time as well as the award nominations is the acting output of the cast which only David O Russell (Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees) can bring out via his legendary brand of directing.