The Fighter Directed by David O. Russell The King’s Speech Directed by Tom Hooper Mark Wahlberg fights for a prize; Colin Firth battles his tongue

The least interesting person in The Fighter is the fighter. That’s not to say that Mickey (Mark Wahlberg) is dull. It’s just that, outside of the ring, this Lowell, Mass., boxer is quiet, polite, eager to earn respect, and, most importantly, keep the peace in his family. Ah, the family: There’s his mother-cum-manager, Alice, a brash bottle-blonde in too-tight skirts who doesn’t understand why boxing isn’t everything to her son. There’s his brother, Dicky, a loose-limbed, bug-eyed current crackhead and former champion who knocked out Sugar Ray Leonard. And there’s his you-gotta-see-em gaggle of seven sisters, all teased hair and New England attitude, who won’t hesitate to stick up for their brothers or call a girl that Mickey’s into a skank.

Though the chorus of harpies are effective but interchangeable no-names, the mom, the bro, and the skank are likely Oscar contenders for their indelible, loudmouth portrayals courtesy of Melissa Leo (unrecognizable), Christian Bale (freakishly good), and Amy Adams (fun to see Miss Sweet Thing play a wide-voweled badass). Wahlberg is fine, too, but like a good ensemble player he nixes showboating in the service of the story, the better to play the eye of the chaos that swirls around him. Any scene-chewing would have tipped the feel of the film toward Actors Acting; as it stands, it’s just good (and often amusing) drama.

So a professional fighter, too often a loser and getting too old not to hold a menial job, battles the odds to continue doing what he loves? No, David O. Russell’s film isn’t exactly like Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler—at least, you’ll forget about any broad plot similarities by the end of the opening scene. In it, Mickey and Dicky are sitting for a filmed interview, ostensibly a documentary about Dicky’s comeback. Dicky’s been dubbed “the pride of Lowell” but does nothing but pump up his brother while Mickey smiles, almost bashful. Then the cameras follow them walking through the neighborhood, and they’re clearly kings. In fact, accompanied by the Heavy’s “How You Like Me Now?” they seem like the coolest people on earth.

But the documentary is really about crack addiction, and The Fighter’s story is just as much Dicky’s as Mickey’s. At the beginning of the film, Mickey is preparing for a fight that will bring in good money and a chance for him to move to a bigger apartment, which will better his odds of seeing his daughter more often. Dicky’s his trainer—when he shows up. But he’s usually too high to keep track of time, the result being the family banging on the front door of the crack house while he jumps out the back window. It’s funny and it’s tragic.

That fight doesn’t work out—Mickey’s intended opponent gets the flu, and he fights someone way over his weight class—leading him to consider giving up boxing altogether. Or, at least, his management: With Mom and Dicky so unreliable and bickering all the time, Mickey considers more professional offers with the caveat he leave the family behind. Encouraging him to do so is Charlene (Adams), a tough barmaid who pledges herself to Mickey just as soon as they start dating.

The Fighter is based on a true story (the real Mickey and Dicky are seen in the closing credits) and is less about perseverance than loyalty—to your family, to your friends, to your girl, especially when all those worlds collide. A trio of scripters sticks reams of curse-laden dialogue into the actors’ mouths, which they all spit out beautifully. Meanwhile, Russell’s camera is as fluid and the brothers’ boxing moves, whipping between characters during arguments and not shying away from the nastier parts of Mickey’s fights. The whole thing’s a knockout.

The King’s Speech Directed by Tom Hooper

The King’s Speech begins with a tense, devastating moment. The Duke of York, son of Britain’s king, is about to deliver an address at the 1925 British Empire Exhibition. He steps up to the microphone, clears his throat as he waits for the signal of three blinking lights, and then a solid one. And then—silence. Epic silence. Followed by a stutter in which he can barely get a word out. It’s gut-wrenching.

Fast forward to 1934, and the duke known as Bertie still has a stutter, but the perspective has shifted to behind-the-scenes and the mood lightens considerably. Tom Hooper’s film, written by David Seidler, has the appearance of royalty with the personality of a commoner—a stubborn, self-deprecating, and quite witty commoner. Colin Firth is rightly garnering Oscar buzz as the duke and future King George VI, who nearly ends his quest to fix his stammer because of a string of imbeciles who prescribe remedies such as a mouthful of marbles and cigarettes. (“Cigarette smoking calms the nerves and gives you confidence!” his doctor cheerfully advises.)

Bertie’s wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) won’t give up, however, and surreptitiously visits an unconventional Australian therapist for consultation. Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) is different, all right: Not realizing that Elizabeth is a royal, he insists that his sessions with her husband take place in his office. When he realizes whom he’s dealing with, well, he still insists that Bertie come to his office. There’s little fawning and zero tolerance for Bertie’s self-pity. In fact, when Bertie insists that the arrangement won’t work out, Lionel practically baits him to break the duke’s preferred silence. “Do you know any jokes?” Lionel asks. “Timing isn’t my strong suit,” Bertie snaps.

The back-and-forth between doctor and patient—for naturally, eventually Bertie agrees to treatment—is the highlight of the film. Lionel’s methods to get words flowing include singing and cursing; a couple of the best scenes have Firth warbling, swearing up a blue streak, or dancing, occasionally all at the same time. It’s not much of a spoiler to reveal that Lionel’s approach works. And when he sees that Bertie’s stutter isn’t physical, he becomes a bit of a psychotherapist, too. It’s not easy being a smooth-talking public figure when you have a father (a terrifically caustic Michael Gambon) who tries to help you by saying things such as, “Spit it out!”

Firth is funny and natural as the reluctant king, brilliantly affecting a stutter without sounding affected. Rush is a joy to watch as well, tartly amusing in his exchanges with Bertie and Elizabeth yet a bit goofy on his own time. (Lionel is an amateur—and not very good—stage actor.) Viewers expecting the stiff royal drama that the dull title implies will be as surprised as the king who’s eventually able to deliver a flawless speech.