Reviews: The Wrestler

Well, I finally got around to watching a totally legal version of  “The Wrestler“, staring the “resurrected” Mickey Rourke, mainly to see what all the hub-bub is about. WWE and TNA have released ‘official’ statements, of course the WWE in a much more negative light.

Apparently, the Dubya wants to distance themselves from the movie due to it’s realistic portrayal of a broken down, aged wrestler who dabbles in the dope and juices up to keep himself active in shitty high school gyms and a few minor league events now and then- long past his retirement age.

Major names such as Mick Foley have gone to the premier and done reviews- actually Foley got into a towel slap fight with a Sports Illustrated writer who compared Foley to “Ram” and called Foley a homeless man.

Many of the reviews I’ve read seek to compare “Randy the Ram Robinson”  to someone specific in the industry. I see no major comparison. There’s a little Foley, a little Flair, a LOT of Jake Roberts, hell there’s a little bit of a lot of guys I know of in this character.

There will be spoilers, so be warned.

We start the movie looking at ticket stubs and posters of “The Ram’s” Heyday. The shitty quality of the graphics and the horrible music choices and the gritty, documentary film they used keeps reminding me that this was a film festival movie, not a major big budget movie.

Backstage we meet “The Ram”, blown up and winded and greeted by his promoter who tosses out a corny insider term to show us how leet the writers are, I guess. “You really put them over”. I mean, in what context is he using this? Kind of threw me off but it’s no big deal.

Randy puts on his civvies, is met by some fans wanting autographs and then we quickly get to see how much of a loser this guy is. He’s locked out of his trailer, sleeps in his van and takes some pills and drinks a beer or something and is awaken by some kids beating on his van the next morning to play with them. Yes, this scene looks as creepy as it sounds. We all know only perverts and pedophiles or a fictional group of ex-United States Army Special Forces who work as soldiers of fortune while being on the run from the military for a “crime they didn’t commit” drive vans.

I might have a hard time reviewing this movie with an open mind, being so deeply grounded in what goes on in a low level wrestler’s life already. None of this is new to me and it comes across as unnecessary to show so much of his life, however the casual movie watcher might need to see him backstage, walking, taking a leak, talking to people, getting his spots for the shows, blowing his nose… etc.

Over the course of the movie, we learn that this guy was a big shit back in the 80s. He had action figures, video games and he’s recognized everywhere. He now works for a rather smart-assed boss in a grocery store who doesn’t seem to respect him at all.

I don’t know what the director’s intentions were, but all I can feel is a sick sense of pity for the guy. Like watching a homeless guy digging in a garbage can… that feeling. Every move he makes, he grunts in agony. He has the look of a broken wrestler down-pact. I mean he really looks like he could be a former star who is trying to hang on to his career.

They take a good amount of time showing us what mommy and daddy told us years ago;  about the wrestlers really being friends and not hating each other– How they set up their own moves and talk about the match before-hand backstage. When I worked a show in Canada, I saw first-hand how they set up their own matches even moments before they go on sometimes. Especially on the independent scene, the opponents may have to choreograph their entire match, and only have to obey who the promoter wants to win the match.

They even point out another piece of insider info; blading. Ram takes a razor and fashions it into a small shank and wraps it up in his wrist bands. During his match, he takes it out and slices his own forehead open. I can’t see too many promoters being happy about this. It’s still fairly uncommon knowledge.

We take another creepy look into Ram’s life. He seems to have a nasty little obsession with a local stripper [Marisa Tormet]. She’s known as Cassidy, but her real name is Pam. You would think a sub plot of the movie is to see how much of her tits you can stand before you are dulled to tits. They show her nude… a lot. It’s like after a while, we get the point ya know? She’s a stripper already!  I wouldn’t suggest taking your younglings unless you plan on being uncomfortably scrunched in your seat for a good 20 minutes total.

She makes it clear to him that she doesn’t cross the line of dating customers. So I don’t need to tell you what happens at the end.

We also get another dose of Ram being a total scum bag when we find out that he bailed on his daughter. More on that later.

We also get to see Ram talking to his dealer, further making him the ultimate sympathetic character. Emphasis on the pathetic. I mean he bought 900 dollars worth of dope. NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS WORTH. They even give us a nice close up of him “ramming” a needle in his ass.

They also spend an inordinate amount of time showing us how dedicated Ram is to his career. He’s in the gym, jogging, he’s in the hair salon, yes the hair salon getting highlights in his hair, he’s in the tanning booth. …He’s injecting himself with thousands of dollars of mind and body altering chemicals… He’s pure dedication.

Then, out of the pure blue sky… he morphs from a “Hoganesque” type of character into the baddest hardcore wrestler in the world. He’s taking staples from a staple gun in a CZW PPV. I’ve never watched CZW personally, but I heard they do some sick shit over there. Light tubes, fire, bombs that type of thing. His opponent, whose name  I didn’t catch (Kidding; Necro Butcher)  is sort of demented as he staples some cash to his forehead and plugs a few into his own chest before forcing Ram into the infection risking fun.

Of course this hardcore, sickening match (I’m not a hardcore style wrestling  fan) wasn’t just a total waste of space and time. After Ram spends a good 20 minutes pulling glass and barbed wire out of his ass, he hurls and collapses into the pile of vomit. Peachy. This scene almost makes The Passion of The Christ look like ladies wrestling compared to this.

We learn later that he had a heart attack and “can never wrestle again”. Cue the dramatic sympathy orchestra. So Ram spends the rest of the movie trying to gain sympathy from people because he’s been alone for so long. First place he goes? Cassidy!

“Hey, guess what?! I has heart attack, I can has vagina?”

Cassidy feels sorry for the guy and tells him to pull this same routine on his estranged daughter, it might work this time. So now Ram morphs into Jake Roberts. He’s broken down, sick, and trying to make his daughter not hate him for basically ignoring that she existed for her entire life.

Doesn’t work at first– She turned gay and emo because of dad. It takes some strategy to get her to trust him and set up a date. It seems like it was taken right out of Beyond the Mat, because Ram decides to bang some slut and snort coke and over sleep his meeting with his daughter; So she never ever wants to see him again.

This sets up his decision to quit being retired and go back to what he really loves because the world doesn’t like him. He jams his hand into the meat grinder at work, quits then decides to set up the PPV with Ayatollah.

In this mess, Cassidy decides that she really loves Ram I guess, walks out on her lurcrative stripping gig and follows him to his show to beg him not to wrestle… OR HE WILL DIE. Seriously, I hate plots like that. I didn’t like it when Rocky did it either. Because in reality, wrestlers risk death daily. They have heart attacks, life threatening concussions and still they wrestle each day. It’s not like that one single match will kill them. More like if they keep up what they are doing it will kill them.

So this is how the movie ends. He wrestles, he’s holding his chest most of the match. He climbs on the ropes to do his finishing move and the movie fades to black. It’s like they couldn’t figure out how to end the movie so they copped out.

Overall, I’ve seen better movies. In fact it seems like I’ve seen THIS movie. It’s not very original to me at all. It’s decent with a nice story but the only reason I sat through the whole thing is because it’s about wrestling and I absorb anything having to do with wrestling.

There’s a lot of Oscar buzz. But my theory is that movies get Oscars because someone, probably a PR person says that it’s going to win an Oscar, and that’s how it gets nominated. Thumbs up or 5 stars from some loser movie critic (Oh yeah) and that’s all it takes.

This movie just isn’t anything special to me. Just seems like a lot of cliches thrown together in a story that is supposed to yank at your heart chords. It seems like the aim was to make Ram a sympathetic character who we should feel pain for. Instead, like I said he’s just mostly pathetic and all I felt was pity.

I’ve written before that I don’t feel too much empathy for these wrestlers who lose it all. They should have invested their money like any regular person. Instead we read story after story of them living the fast life, using drugs and many of these stories end tragically.

Wrestling like many professional sports is a long shot profession. Unlike the other professional sports, there’s only a select few who really make it big. A VERY select few. There is very long odds of becoming a star, not because of a lack of talent but because of the rampant lockeroom politics involved. This is even mentioned in the movie.

My point is, a smart person has a plan B. A smart person does not get a large sum of money and blow it on dope and whores as if that money will flow in forever. The way wrestlers in the WWE get fired left and right, they should PLAN on being fired eventually. There’s a list of maybe 10 guys that can bet on keeping their jobs even through slow times. Maybe even less than that.

So this movie doesn’t do anything but show me another loser who made bad choices and expects me to lose tears over it.

I give this film a 2/5. It was great for the sport, but nothing special on it’s own merits. Rourke’s acting was great, but nothing ground-breaking. He really sold his role, I do give him that, and maybe that is worth an Oscar. I do have to admit that he did make a VERY convincing has-been wrestler. I bought his role even down to his moves like hurricanranas, and his gimmick, like that ‘slapping his elbow’ thing. You can tell he spent a lot of time learning this craft before going on screen.

If Rourke’s acting wasn’t so good, this movie wouldn’t even get a rating from me.

There ya have it, from a wrestling fan’s perspective it’s worth watching. From a movie watcher’s perspective, it might be ok to rent or just wait for it to come out on cable.

Like what you saw? Bookmark me!

Related Posts

1. Wrestling Legends Discuss THE WRESTLER
2. Top 15 stupid wrestler names part 2
3. Retro Reviews: He-Man
4. I’m a wrestling critic
5. KHill’s RAW ReCrap 2.23.09

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!

Mickey Rourke, Pro Wrestling, Wrestler