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List Price: $29.98 | | Label: Fox Searchlight
Salesrank: 1067
Released: April 21, 2009 |
| Our Price: $14.93 |
| Used Price: $2.44 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 21-APR-2009
Media Type: DVD
Description of The Wrestler:
The mystery of Mickey Rourke's career comes to a grungy apotheosis in The Wrestler, the much-battered actor's triumphant return to the top rope. He plays Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a heavily scarred and medicated battler who's twenty years past his best moment in the ring. But he still schleps to every second-rate fight card he can get to, stringing out the paychecks (more likely a fistful of cash) and nursing what's left of his pride. His attempts to adjust to a more normal kind of life form the most absorbing sections in the movie, whether it's flirting with a stripper (Marisa Tomei is in good form, in every sense), establishing a bond with his understandably angry daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), or working behind the deli counter at a nondescript megastore. Rourke is commanding in the role; he obviously spent hours in the gym and the tanning salon, and his ease with the semi-documentary style adopted by director Darren Aronofsky allows him to naturalistically interact with the colorful real-life wrestlers who crowd the movie's ultra-believable locations. All of which helps distract from the film's overall adherence to ancient formula. You might find yourself waiting for the scene where the risk-taking Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream) pulls the switch and reveals his true motives for pursuing this otherwise sentimental story, but there's no switch. The Wrestler is an old-fashioned hoke machine, given grit by an actor who doesn't seem to be so much performing the role of ravaged survivor as embodying it. --Robert Horton
Stills from The Wrestler (Click for larger image)
The Wrestler Reviews:
Realistic and Can be appreciated by any Wrestling fan! 
2009-12-02 - After reading through review after review of people talking about Mickey Rourke, I'm actually going to review the MOVIE these reviews are supposed to be about.
The Wrestler is probably one of the best long time awaited movies by wrestling fans that remember the guys from the glory days and what became of them to date. Just watching this movie reminded me so much of a documentry I watched long ago about Jake The Snake and his real life struggles with his daughter and his demons. The Wrestler brings a true since of realism to the silver screen and that's not something that happens to often. This movie is great for one thing, and that's "realism". An old wrestler who's glory days are behind him and has to work part time at a grocery store while still continue matches on the side to get by,a worn down stripper who can't seem to settle down and have a real emotional relationship with a man,and a daughter who has been abandoned by her father for a majority of her life, and can't seem to find peace within herself.
I mean these are real people, this is real life on film. At the beginning of the movie you see Randy The Ram as a Wrestler that can still keep himself on his feet, but as the movie goes on you really get to see just how thin thread that's holding him up truly is. To Randy The Ram, being a wrestler is his identity, it's what he has always known, and what has always motivated him to keep on moving. Even at the end of his career at the very bottom of it all, he still can't let go of it. Only towards the end of the movie do you get to realize why Randy does what he does. He Wrestles because the ring is that one place, where he truly feels at peace.
Not Hollywood
2009-12-02 - If you haven't seen "The Wrestler" yet go watch it on HBO or buy the DVD. This is by far the most honest drama ever made. The first thing you will notice is the camera work. It's mostly done in a hand-held style reminiscent of documentaries. The second thing you'll notice is how Rourke just immerses himself in the role. There are little touches and details that you won't see in the vast majority of films. Marisa Tomei (gorgeous as always) plays a stripper in her mid or late 40's. And there's a scene where she's crawling along the catwalk and you can see the stretchmarks on her body giving away her age. In 90% of Hollywood films, they would have edited them out. The scene where Rourke breaks down and says he's "just a broken down piece 'a meat", that is just one of the top tear-jerker scenes and somewhat reminiscent of Brando in "On the Waterfront".
Despite nobody acknowledging this, "The Wrestler" is based on the life of Jake "The Snake" Roberts. If you watched "Beyond the Mat" (1999) there are many parallels including the wrestlers troubled relationship with his daughter and inability to deal with his faded glory.
Why are you still reading this? Go buy it!
More Like A Real Life Documentry Than A Hollywood Movie
2009-11-29 - Have you ever seen "Requium For A Heaveyweight", the story of the over-the-hill, washed up pugilist, Mountain Rivera"? Anthony Quinn was superb in the lead role and the screenplay written by Rod Serling cuts right to the heart of the grim reality of the "sweet science" of prize fighting. How about "The Hustler" starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason? It's the story of "Fast" Eddie Felson, a man who's life outside the pool-room is so detatched and alienated that he can't relate to everyday situations without a bottle to drown his sorrow. And you may have seen "The Cincinnati Kid" with Steve McQueen and Edward G.Robinson. McQueen's character pushes his luck to the limits until he lays it all on the line in a high stakes porker game against the old pro, played by Edward G. All of these films deal with characters who are compelled to play out their lives in an arena, where danger and self distruction inevitably destory all hope of redemption.
"The Wrestler", starring Micky Rourke and Marisa Tomei is also a story of hope and redemption. Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a fictional professional wrestler is a composite of several real-life pro wrestlers. "The Ram", has toiled in the "square-ring" putting his body through the abuses of broken bones, loss of hearing, numerous self inflicted cuts, (a practice called "blading") and the ravages of alcohol, drugs and anabolic steroids. "I'm just a broken-down old piece of meat", he says in describing his condition. When he suffers a near fatal heart attack, he is told that his career as a professional wrestler is over and that he risks it all should he continue to wrestle. Randy attempts to find a way to survive outside the ring and rebuild a relationship with his estranged daughter Stephanie, played by Evan Rachel Wood. Stephanie represents the colatteral damage wrought on by the war Randy has waged within the ring and within himself. But like the aforementioned characters, Mountain Rivera, "Fast" Eddie Felson and "The Cincinnati Kid", his life away from the areana is void of any traces of humanity. His failure to find work in mundane endevors, like working at a supermarket deli counter, render him deeper into despair and depression. And his inability to reconnect with Stephanie, except for a breif moment, destorys any hope he may have had at redemption.
Randy seeks solace at the local strip club and befriends the lonely and misbegotten "exotic dancer", Pam aka "Cassidy" played by Marisa Tomei. They develop a relationship based upon mutual feelings of failure and alienation. And so when Randy decides to make a comeback, it is Pam who implores him not to. "I'm here for you", she pleads just before he enters the ring. But Randy knows he can't escape his fate. He is already under the spell of the crowd's roar, the bright lights and the danger that awaits him. "I have to", he replys. "The only place I don't get hurt is out there".
The gritty realism and the superlative acting by Rourke, Tomei and Wood make you almost believe that you're watching a real life documentry and not a Hollywood movie. The hand-held camara follows Randy through the shoddy locker rooms of the small town venues, the back rooms and hallways of the butcher shops and the confides of his rusted out old trailer home. We get more than a "slice of life" glimpse into his world, instead we get the whole pie, pits and all. The Wrestler is a finely crafted film that will enlighten most viewers as to the dangers of professional wrestling. But more than that it is a story that will leave you feeling the agonizing pain of it's all too real characters and the struggle to redeem their pitiful and irreparably damaged lives.
different than I was expecting
2009-11-29 - I was expecting the Wrestler to be a film focusing on the wrestling career of a character portrayed by Mickey Rourke, but instead, it's a story focusing on the LIFE of a wrestler portrayed by Mickey Rourke.
Going into the movie, well, I've been a big wrestling fan for over 15 years now. Sometimes I watch wrestling on TV constantly (specifically WWE wrestling) other times I go through phases where I'd rather watch something else instead.
However, despite how I may feel about wrestling at whatever moment in time, the one thing that never changes is the fact that I've personally cried when many wrestling stars have died at a young and unexpected age, because for years, I've been reading about everything these superstars have to go through in order to put on a show and entertain the fans. Everyone from Owen Hart, to Eddie Guerrero to the British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith.
They will always be remembered by wrestling fans for their hard work and talent. The Wrestler really focuses on the struggles of wrestlers who make a living by putting on entertaining shows.
Mickey Rourke does an INCREDIBLE job showing us what sports entertainment wrestling is really like. Everything from the kind of shape these superstars have to be in on an everyday basis, to the way they bleed in the ring, to the way the wrestlers interact with each other before and during matches, to the way they sometimes DO take REAL damage when they smack either other (such as during those extreme matches that focus on tables, barbed wire, chairs, and other dangerous weapons)- this movie covers all the aspects of a wrestling superstars career.
The film even covers what happens AFTER a wrestling match, and focuses on the condition these wrestlers are in when they return home.
Without spoiling anything, I'm really surprised over the fact the film does NOT focus entirely on wrestling. Instead, the first 45 minutes show us some wrestling, then the next 45 minutes focus on Mickey Rourke's character and the people he interacts with (especially the woman in his life- a LOT of attention was given to this aspect of the storyline) and then the film finishes up with the wrestling aspect to end the movie.
What is a bit on the disappointing side is the ending. It leaves a few questions unanswered, some of them BIG questions. Who knows what really happened after that final scene?
Anyway, the movie probably deserves all those awards it won last year, because the movie has that distinct quality about it that makes the general population really appreciate the time and work that went into it. Probably a classic film, especially for wrestling fans.
A WOLF WITH A TAN AND BREATH AS FRESH AS MONKEYS BREATH BROTHER
2009-11-20 - There's something in this film that had me watching it a dozen or so times. The depicftion and peeling away of the non existent middle class America that is revealed here is scorching. The failure in this film is unromanticized and so beautifully dreary from the Hallmark card failure presented to Tomei to the heart wrenching attempts to reach out to a daughter with statements like "I'm just a broken down sack of meat", paraphrased here. This film can stand with the best of Tony Richardson's British New Wave films. There is something here that really has me on the edge of my seat wondering whats next for Arronofsky. The man he presents here for us knows himself so well that all the roads which yawn open to him he will place a foot on ;the man at the deli counter, the middle aged guy with the heart problems, the perenially youthful alleycat in firemans boots, the last shot at fatherhood and I guess the one that got me rebirth & redemption thru a love affair with the whore with a heart of gold ... a foot on all of these and then rejecting them out of hand. The anti hero here gets out on the ropes here certain heart failure for him and all of us. I find myself going back to John Osborne's great play "Look Back In Anger" ...................JIMMY:...There are cruel steel traps lying about everywher, just waiting for rather mad , slightly satanic, and very timid little animals. Right? Alison nods. {pathetically}. poor squirrels! ..................ALISON (with the same comic emphasis). Poor bears!She laughs a little. then looks at him very tenderly, and adds very, very softly.) Oh, Poor, poor bears!...Slides her arms around him....CURTAIN
