The screenplay by Robb and Mark Cullen (Manchild, New Car Smell) puts together a mish - mash of 1980s cop flick clichés without
generating much humor out of them other than the knowing references.
Though dark hued, particularly in the first two acts, «The Fighter» is, I'm sure, a
much breezier film because of Russell, whose specialty is
generating humor from darkness, death, and dysfunction as in the bitterly comic «Three Kings,» «I Heart Huckabees,» and «Flirting with Disaster.»