While David O. Russell’s Nailed remains in jeopardy, leaving audiences wondering whether they’ll ever see Jessica Biel standing up for better healthcare on behalf of nymphomaniacs injured in bizarre nail gun accidents everywhere, at least he’s got other things to concentrate on—and judging by the just-released trailer for The Fighter, they’re bigger things indeed. Big, blockbuster-y things, if these Rocky-esque scenes of Mark Wahlberg overcoming his inner-city everyman upbringing to become champion of the woooooorld are to be believed.
If it seems like an unusually popcorn-munching, crowd-pleasing direction to take for the team that previously brought you an “existential detective” story (that also somehow involved chicken salad and Shania Twain), well, it sort of is. Wahlberg plays a quintessential working-class underdog whose rise to the top of the lightweight fighting division is hampered by his ne’er-do-well brother (Christian Bale, looking vaguely like a plucked rooster), but whose wounds—inner and outer—are soothed by a heart-of-gold barmaid (Amy Adams, occasionally in her underwear).
But still, there’s probably something weird going on, right? Maybe this rather straightforward preview—which is only missing “Eye Of The Tiger,” really—is just a ruse, and it will turn out that The Fighter all takes place in Wahlberg’s mind, and Bale’s character doesn’t even really exist except as a manifestation of Wahlberg’s self-destructive tendencies. Or something. Either that, or Russell just got tired of being the “subversive” guy and wanted to prove that he can also just make some money.