The Wrestler Review

Film fans you all might not know this about me but i'm huge fan of wrestling and I have been since I was a kid. So it really shouldn't shock you to learn that I picked this film the first chance that I had and I watch it quite a lot but i've never reviewed the movie i've tried once or twice before but that's really as far i've ever gotten and so both wrestling fans young and old and film fans young and old I present to you my review of the 2008 film "The Wrestler" let's get this started shall we.

The plot of the movie is Randy "The Ram" Robinson was a famous wrestler in the eighties who would sell out arena's all over America and now twenty years later he's barely able to sell out a school gym , however after a heart attack his is forced to retire from the ring can randy resist the temptation to wrestle one last match or will he find true love with an ageing stripper named Pam. I did my best to summarise the plot of this movie but it's honestly impossible not because there's so much going on but because of the fact that even when trying to condense the plot there's still alot to include , in terms of what of the story tho it was honestly refreshing to see this kind of story being told one where the hero might not necessarily do the right thing which is something that i've not seen in a long time.

Starring in the film is Mickey Rourke as Robin Ramzinski / Randy "The Ram" Robinson , Marisa Tomei as Pam / Cassidy , Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood as Stephanie Ramzinski , Mark Margolis as Lenny , Todd Barry as Wayne , Judah Friedlander as Scott , Ernest "The Cat" Miller as Bob / "The Ayatollah" , Ajay Naidu as Medic , Wass Stevens as Nick , John D'Leo as Adam and Gregg Bello as Larry.

When this film first came out it rightfully got alot of praise for it's performances and it's not hard to see why. Since the acting in this film is so freaking good i'd go as far to say that the acting in this film at least from our two leads Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei is freaking OSCAR worthy that's how good it is , heck even the supporting cast do such a good job in their roles that I forgot that I was seeing an actor and started seeing the character.

Rather rightfully so there are alot of cameos from other wrestlers including the current 35 time winning 48/7 7/11 TV champion (it's a wrestling joke don't worry if you don't get it) Ron "The Truth" Killings aka R-Truth. As well as Robbie E , Necro Butcher , Nick Berk , The Blue Meanie , Sabian , Nate Hatred and Jay Lethal among many others. If you are a fan of pro wrestling then chances are your going to like spotting these cameos but good luck spotting all of them i've had this film for over ten years and i've still not not Jay Lethal or The Blue Meanie.

Now while I don't exactly know if this film is an accurate portrayal of what life is like for workers on the indy wrestling scene. I do know that alot of what goes on in the film is fairly accurate in the wrestling business since alot of guys who work for the major companies (WWE , TNA , ROH and AEW) chances are the companies in question will pay for where ever there sleeping that night. However for smaller promotions that are running maybe one show a week that won't be the case so chances are you'll see a wrestler sleeping in the back of a car simply because they can't afford to sleep anywhere else and don't have enough money to pay rent.

I spent alot of time trying to work out how wrestling is portrayed in this film since alot of films will treat wrestling as if it's real. This film tries to have it both ways by having the characters talk about what moves they want to do in a match but then they won't follow that through by not having them talk to each other in the ring which is what alot of wrestlers do and so it makes it look like the film is trying to portray wrestling as both real and fictional at the same time.

Now I know that I just said that they don't have the wrestlers talking to each other in the ring which isn't strictly true since they do do it in the final match but you don't see it be done in any of the matches. Which I know is a small detail but it's something that us wrestling fans are going to look for since we'd want to seen the sport portrayed as accurately as possible and talking to each other during a match in the ring is one of those things that would make it more real.

Now as mentioned this film does indeed feature a romance subplot which usually i'm not that big of a fan especially if it leads nowhere. Which this romantic subplot could indeed be seen as leading nowhere if you look a little bit deeper it actually does lead somewhere since Pam (Marisa Tomei) is sick of getting her heart broken and so when she starts dating Randy she thinks that it's going to change but when she tries and fails to stop him from being on this self destructive path that he's on she can't take it and leaves the arena of his last match knowing that he's leaving that arena in a body bag.

The only bit of drama that I didn't like because it does go nowhere is the drama between Randy and his estranged daughter Stephanie Ramzinski (Evan Rachel Wood) simply because it adds nothing to the story. I honestly feel that Randy not getting along with his estranged daughter and the fight he has with Pam just because there relationship where as his relationship with Stephanie and so when she tells him of for missing something that was important to her I felt nothing.

I will always state that the film with the best wrestling in it is 2019's "Fighting With My Family" since in that film they had actual wrestlers pulling of the moves. Here while they do have some wrestlers pulling of the moves but the issue is the moves that there doing are the most basic of moves and that's just not interesting to see I don't want to see Mickey Rourke doing a bulldog headlock or receiving one but I do want to see him pulling of a more complex move like a piledriver but we do see him pull one complex move which does look pretty good and that's the suicide dive but that's move not hard to make look good.

Overall while this is indeed a good movie which I will never ever deney and while it is a good representation of the indy wrestling scene. However it's not a good wrestling movie the moves are basic at best there the most basic wrestling moves that anyone could pull off and that doesn't make the moves or the movie interesting , which is a shame because the movie is really good the drama when it actually affects the plot is really good and so wrestling fans this film gets an impressive 8 out of 10 from me and sorry for the lack of HD images I looked for them but I couldn't find any.