Anyone that walks out of this movie thinking Christian Bale deserves the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor is crazy.  What he deserves is Best Actor.  

Bale shares 95% of his scenes with “lead” actor Mark Wahlberg, and has a lion’s share of the dialogue, fantastically inhabiting a charachter who is both local legend and recovering addict.  Maybe Bale’s overshadowing of Wahlberg, who plays a wishy-washy mongoloid consistantly afraid to confront a family that continually creates a toxic environment for him, is what causes the movie to fail.  While Melissa Leo and Amy Adams are extraordinary in their roles, I just didn’t care about the hero.