4. “The Fighter” (2010)
As much of a comeback story for its director as for its main character, Irish welterweight boxer Mickey Ward, “The Fighter” is that rarest of things: an unapologetic Hollywood underdog story that’s genuinely rousing and heartwarming and never once insults the intelligence of its audience. The first entry in a sort of unofficial trilogy about family and identity, (preceding “The Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle,” both similarly sprawling and rambunctious character comedies played in a signature key) “The Fighter” is slightly more idiosyncratic and personal-feeling than these sorts of films tend to be. In other words, it’s more vintage John Cassavetes than “Rocky”. The film contains all of the training montages and bone-crunching fights that committed fans of these films have come to expect, but strip away the boxing milieu and what you’re left with is a moving and often painful story of one ordinary blue-collar schnook and the toxic, if ultimately well-meaning family that he feels trapped by. Russell’s longtime leading man Mark Wahlberg gives one of his most reserved, nuanced turns as the “Son of Lowell, Massachusetts,” Ward: it’s the exact opposite of what Jake Gyllenhaal did in “Southpaw,” abandoning actorly tics for a sense of earnest, lived-in realism. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Micky’s spectacularly troubled brother Dicky Eklund (a revelatory Christian Bale, who deservedly took home an Oscar for his work here). Dicky’s a former fighting phenom-turned-crackhead whose attempts to worm his way back into his more famous brother’s life only result in him sinking deeper into the muck. Also along for the ride are Micky’s big-haired, trash-talking mom, (a show-stopping Melissa Leo) his seven terrifying, chain-smoking sisters and a sad-eyed bartender (Amy Adams, in her first collaboration with Russell) who sees the human side of Micky where others only see dollar signs. The film is remarkable for how it toggles between bare-knuckle, anything-goes black comedy and a tone of dead-serious sports drama with little to none of the tonal wonkiness that has sometimes marred Russell’s efforts (“Spanking the Monkey” being the foremost example). “The Fighter” also marks a pivotal moment for its director, where he managed to embrace mainstream formula as a way of telling his own uniquely personal stories on a somewhat larger scale. Gritty and vibrant, hilarious and heartbreaking, “The Fighter” is nothing short of a K.O.
3. “Flirting With Disaster” (1996)
If there’s anything that resembles an undervalued gem in Russell’s filmography, it’s his second film, an all-star comedy that builds on the voice and tone of his debut to far more raucous and accessible effect (though the film, sadly, failed to find much of an audience at the time). Ben Stiller, still a few years from his big-screen stardom arriving with “There’s Something About Mary,” stars as Mel, a new father married to Patricia Arquette’s Nancy, who on the birth of his child, decides to seek out his biological parents, upsetting his adoptive mother and father (George Segal and Mary Tyler Moore). A road trip begins, the family joined by adoption agency employee Tina (Tea Leoni), but there’s been a mix up, and they end up meeting multiple possible parents (Celia Weston, David Patrick Kelly, Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin), but also a pair of gay ATF agents (Josh Brolin and Richard Jenkins). Few genres are as difficult to make work on screen than farce — only the most skilled comedic filmmakers can pull it off (“Mistress America” being one of the few recent examples), and even then only seemingly half the time. But Russell’s sharply plotted, consistently uproarious script makes it work, the road movie momentum giving the story a breathlessness that stagier attempts usually fail at: it’s like Hal Ashby taught early Peter Bogdanovich and Woody Allen how to smoke weed and relax a little. The feel of timeless comedy is carried across by the cast, with 1960s and 1970s vets like Moore, Tomlin and Segal relishing the chance to play with some slightly edgier material, while Stiller’s terrific, and Russell finds a comic deftness in performers like Arquette, Brolin and Leoni that they’ve rarely been able to capitalize on since. (Best in show, though, might be Richard Jenkins, utterly hysterical as Brolin’s partner/lover, particularly once he ends up tripping on LSD). The film might not quite have the heart of some of Russell’s later movies, and it certainly doesn’t have the technical chops, but the pleasing looseness, and astonishing facility with an ensemble, has carried through ever since.