Movie Review: The Wrestler

Got baked (again, more awesome than before) and watched The Wrestler on Sunday. It was awesome. I tried to stay away from reviews for it ever since I started to hear the buzz. I watched the trailer and all it was was praise for the flick. Sometimes that can be a bad thing. They just find ramdoms on the internet who liked it and source them in that movie announcer voice to make it sound spectacular.

Anyways when the opening credits started rooling, I must say that I was expecting the worse. The fanfare they had manifested did not look anything like the WWF propaganda I grew up with and though that was some... 7 years after the main character's hayday was set I wasn't impressed. But when the film actually began, I was blown away. It was gitty and raw and painful and truthful and totally unexpected.

I was however confused and disappointed by somethings. The film had a real documentary feel with the abundance of handheld shots. And at first I thought the follow shots of The Ram were to emulate the follow shots common is modern wrestling broadcasts. It got to be little much though and just came off as lazy and unimaginative.

I also don't think that relationship between the daugther was wholly realistic. It came off like she was an unsympathic brat. And why is Rachel Evan Wood so damned white?? The storyline did play into the overall plot quite well, I just thought it could have been done better.

Also there was a lack of flashbacks. It remained to be seen just how successful of a wrestler he acutally was. I can imagine, but he must have fallen REALLY hard to end up where he did. There was also none of that - the fall from grace. I suppose that was an artistic choice to have the story focus narrowly on his personal assention to imagined greatness.

The story of The Ram is a great film in its exploration of masculinity. It take a look at the powerful male, at the on set of old age. There is no doubt in the viewer's mind that this guy is too old to be doing what he's doing (despite the fact he looks epicly built - *shudder* its still Mickey Rourke). But his measure of self worth is tied forever to his persona in the ring. It is his place of business, its what he knows how to do best and what he is good at.

The film also does a lot to show just how real wrestling is. I was a wrestling for a few short lived years. My mother would have none of it in her house, which worked for me because all of my friends had bigger and better TVs to watch it on. I still catch it on every once in a while and am taken aback by the amount of superstars who have been around since before I was a fan. Bret Micheals is still running around without his shirt and hes been wrestling since 1988 (omfg!). It is the ultimate male soap opera.

Rating time: ****/5
Check it out.