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THE FIGHTER True to form for controversial director David O. Russell (Three Kings), The Fighter takes a real-life story and turns it into a scrappy, hard-edged motion picture. Its focus is the relationship between Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a boxer with real potential, and his brother-trainer Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), a boxing has-been and crack addict holding his sibling back. Micky's manager-mom (Melissa Leo) isn't much better in looking out for her pugilist son's welfare, leaving it to his new girlfriend (Amy Adams) to properly guide him. The Fighter is initially so raw in its approach that it's a shame when it becomes less Raging Bull and more Rocky IV just in time for a conventional fadeout. And while the oversized theatrics of Bale and Leo have already generated Oscar buzz, I actually prefer the more subtle earnestness of Wahlberg and especially Adams (shucking her usual sunshine beaming for an unexpected toughness). Still, all four actors (plus Jack McGee as Micky's sympathetic father) work well in tandem, and Russell and his scripters make the shifting dynamics among the family members ring true. The Fighter doesn't quite go the distance, but it's good enough to last several rounds. ***
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 We won't know until July 15, 2011, whether or not the final book in J.K. Rowling's franchise really needed to be divided into two movies. But until the release of Part 2 on that forthcoming day, the evidence based on Part 1 leads to an inconclusive verdict. This is the first picture in the series that actually drags — it's not a disastrous debit since the majority of the film is so strong, but it does suggest that some judicious trimming might have given us the final chapter in one fell swoop. The coasting comes in the middle, which is fortunate since it leaves the production with a vibrant opening act and a powerhouse final hour. Fans will immediately be swept up in this latest chapter, which begins by killing off one of the good guys and sending Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) on a crusade to locate specific items that might help them vanquish the evil Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). The movie spends an awful lot of time on the teens as they set up camp in an isolated area, and the romantic yearning between them, usually a highlight of the series, here settles into soap opera mundaneness. Yet once the story leaps past this narrative hurdle, it again gets back to the intriguing dynamics that have long defined this series. ***
HOW DO YOU KNOW Often as likable as a frolicking puppy — and always as messy — How Do You Know is one of those pictures in which everyone is so gosh-darn charismatic that the battle — at least for the filmmakers — is already half over. When compared to writer-director James L. Brooks' early efforts in television and cinema (including Mary Tyler Moore and Broadcast News), this latest work is a mere trifle. But it's a fairly clever one, with Reese Witherspoon cast as Lisa, a professional softball player forced to choose between two guys: a baseball star (Owen Wilson) who's so smitten with Lisa that he agrees to a monogamous relationship (albeit one with the occasional "anonymous sex") and a squeaky-clean executive (Paul Rudd) being bamboozled by his dad (Jack Nicholson) into taking the fall for the old man's illegal activities. Witherspoon and Rudd are adorable, and Nicholson has one killer scene set inside a hospital room. Yet given the occasional blandness of the couple's romantic interludes and the haziness of the latter's business dealings, the movie works best when Wilson is front and center. The actor doesn't stray from his patented mellow schtick, but by subjugating his hangdog aura for a more aggressively horndog sensibility, he provides the film with its most knowing laughs. **1/2
I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS This based-on-fact tale contains a scene in which Ewan McGregor goes down on Jim Carrey, and it's moments such as these that doubtless kept the film out of U.S. theaters since its Sundance premiere almost two years ago. That it finally expanded its venue count on Christmas Day was a nice touch (let's not forget, Christians: good will toward all men), but the truth is that this forgettable yarn, about a con artist who repeatedly outwits the citizens of Governor-Bush-era Texas (not that hard, I imagine), needs a more sincere showcase than the one presented by the makers of Bad Santa. As Steven Russell, a shyster who successfully passes himself off as (among other things) a lawyer, a judge and a corporate executive all in the name of love for his boy toy Phillip Morris (McGregor), Carrey veers more toward In Living Color mimicry than Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soulfulness. That approach completely undermines a love story that's already being told in a slipshod manner due to an overstated focus on Steven's antics at the expense of more downtime with Phillip. Love means never having to say you're sorry, but viewers expecting any semblance of genuine romance nevertheless deserve some sort of apology. **