The trailer for The Fighter: Mark Wahlberg said knock you out

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.