Matt is happy to lay down and job to THE WRESTLER
THE WRESTLER is a movie I've waited a very long time to see. A movie I always knew or rather hoped could be made given the right circumstances and well, just some plain big mighty balls. A movie where the desire to showcase the "fake" sport for how it truly is wins precedent over what might be the most commercially viable aspect of the "cartoon" world of professional wrestling. A movie I would get so ill-tempted about not seeing when the READY TO RUMBLE'S and NACHO LIBRE'S would clog up our cinema screens, playing to the populist and ignorant image of the sport that gives wrestling such a bad name. I dare say it's also the movie that thousands of wrestlers who have lived this crazy lifestyle over the years have been desperate to see get made. THE WRESTLER is a testament to each and every guy or girl who has stepped into that squared circle, put on those tights and battered up their body, damn nearly killed themselves night after night to put on a show for all together the loyalest and most fickle crowd in entertainment and then get asked why it is they do what they do by those who can't understand it. Well thanks to Darren Aronofsky's fourth movie, the first of his that for me works on a whole, his best movie yet working from a very small scale but powerful Robert D. Siegel script... those crazy grapplers can now point doubters to THE WRESTLER because it will poetically tell them what it means to be a wrestler in a way they could never quite describe. This is a fabulous movie, possibly my favourite in a year when the really good movies have been spectacular. I recommend it to everyone, those who know lots about wrestling and I guess especially those who know very little about it as I can guarantee you it will change forever what you think of this sport, much in the same way Barry W. Blaustein's documentary BEYOND THE MAT did some years ago. THE WRESTLER is the story of a washed up guy who has more scars on the inside than on the outside. And Mickey Rourke's Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a big name from the 80's who was the American image of righteousness in the ring fighting the likes of the Iranian sympathiser The Ayallotah (which borrows an awful lot from the Hulk Hogan/Iron Sheik feud from the 80's) who has now fallen from grace, well past his expiry date... has more scars on the outside than most. He has tortured himself through years of torrid physical abuse, both in the ring, in the locker room with drugs and on plastic surgeon tables trying to fix the mess he has made of himself. He has become estranged from his early 20's independent daughter (played rather well by Evan Rachel Wood) and it may be too late for him to win her back in his life. He still wrestles, still shows heart and is well liked in the dressing room and importantly with the fans. But the number of those are dwindling as he wrestles in small time venues, sometimes even a tarted up warehouse, whose gate struggles to pay his rent. This isn't Slyvester Stallone in RAMBO and not even Stallone in ROCKY BALBOA... this is a guy who once had the world at his feet in Madison Square Garden and has pretty much ran out of gas. And we never quite find out why he has ended up this way but we never really need to. We have seen and lived that tale before. We have seen our heroes fall. This is instead the tale of the guy who has hit rock bottom and tries to climb back that intimidating ladder. He sees a glimmer of home in his personal life with a small time bar stripper Cassidy, or Pam as she is called after hours. She is just about the only thing he has towards a true friend and he clearly wants more and as Cassidy is someone who performs and sacrifices her body to a rowdy crowd night after night, they have something they both share and can relate with. The always stunning Marisa Tomeii kind of picks off from where she left off last year in BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD and she once again shows off her incredible acting chops in this kind of role, and also some bare skin. What's so wonderful about THE WRESTLER is that it says about as much about as Rourke as it does about the character he plays. You can see it in those eyes, that charisma, in that smile of his. Mickey Rourke of the 1980's is locked somewhere in Randy "The Ram" Robinson, the down and out, almost washed up "one trick pony" who was only ever good at wrestling. That's all he knows and his dedication to the sport, of feeling that adrenalin rush from the top rope as he is about to put his whole weight down on another body has cost him his wife, his daughter, any resemblance of a life outside of wrestling. It has cost him everything. A pain that it's well documented Mickey Rourke knows all too well and in many ways, this was the one role he was absolutely born to play. SIN CITY may have brought back Mickey Rourke to the mainstream but it won't do for his career what THE WRESTLER will. Oh and just give him the Best Leading Man Oscar right now. He more than deserves it. Watch closely the action scenes, how a guy who is north of 50 has managed to take up wrestling and adapt himself to the moves, the mannerisms, the way to take bumps. He looks like he has been doing this sport for three decades, it's an incredible performance when you match it up with the character he plays outside the ring. It's a performance every bit as good as Daniel Day-Lewis last year in THERE WILL BE BLOOD and for me it hands down has to win. THE WRESTLER is probably the most visceral film of 2008 even more so than SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and the love story set on the streets of Mumbai. Aronofsky shoots the movie in the style of a documentary, it feels so real and true. Every moment, none of it feels cinematic... it's as if Martin Scorsese directed ROCKY as a wrestling movie in the late 70's using the same technique he had for MEAN STREETS. I'm about 24 hours away now from seeing the movie and there's so many scenes I remember that fill me with so much emotion. The Nintendo Wrestling scene is just pure joy, the kid who plays with the Randy action figure is something that really hit home to my childhood, the amazing scene where Randy walks into his new job at a Deli Counter which is framed and shot in painful 30 second tracking shot that is reminiscent of an earlier scene when he was about to come out to the crowd for a match is note perfect. And for someone who has worked in customer service roles, the deli counter scene is 100% accurate. And how joyful is it to see Randy in those scenes, Mickey has nailed that character down to the ground. THE WRESTLER is the only good wrestling movie I've ever seen. It may end up being the RAGING BULL of the sport but God damnit, doesn't it show that the sport has unlimited story potential for the big screen?