“So we didnt suck…totally..”

I’m not sure what to make of The Wrestler. While I thought it was a good movie,  I don’t think I would go out there and recommend as something you need to go see.

There was a lot of hype going into The Wreslter for me. Some of it came from the overly positive reviews I have been reading but most of it came from my love of professional wrestling. I’ve loved it (pro-wrestling) for as long as I can remember and I’ve always thought that the backstage politicking and athleticism involved with the sport would be a perfect backdrop for a movie. The Wrestler was supposed to be the action packed inside look behind the curtain. It wasn’t; what it was a close up look at a down and out guy who just so happened to wrestle for a living.

The problems I have with the movie aren’t with Mickey Rourke. Mickey’s future paychecks have pretty much been padded by his performance in The Wrestler but it’s well earned. Mickey’s face isn’t exactly one that disappears into a movie but there was no Cruise effect; he is his character. His performance carries the movie and any other actor would have given the movie a different feel. So now that I’ve said that Mickey was great, I can safely say, his character is a dick. I couldn’t find anything about him I think I liked. How can you care about his downward spiral when there seems to be no redeeming value to him?
That for me, was a killer and it really hampered my ability to enjoy the movie.

There’s been lots of talk about Marissa Tomei’s nudity in the movie; wow, she’s hot. Like Mickey, I can’t really imagine another actress who would have done well with the role. The nudity is a bonus.  Evan Rachel Wood l is also in the movie and her scenes are quite emotional and she does well with the material. She does feel a bit underused though.

The story itself moves at a moderate pace and gives some great insight into the camaraderie of wrestlers and some of things that go into making a wrestling match. The backstage stuff is quite interesting and something I would have love to have seen more of. The matches themselves are done exceptionally well. They’re highly entertaining and the scenes showing the aftermath are especially telling about the business. They’re also shot beautifully and really give a good feel for what it’s like to be in the ring. For a wrestling fan like myself, there are lots of little things that really make it feel like a real match. I would have love to have seen more wrestling in the movie but I can see why they didn’t do it. My problem with the story is that from beginning to end, it seems to hammer the point that the main character is down and out. After a while, it becomes just a little bit repetitive and there doesn’t seem to be enough emotional escalation to the story.
That was the second killer for me, there are no points in the story where I really questioned Mickey’s character’s motivation; I just felt like that from beginning to end, you knew what was going to happen.

Darren Aronofsky is a well made movie but it doesn’t translate into something that entertaining or enjoyable for me. I love professional wrestling and wanted to this movie to be something special but Mickey’s character and the lack of suspense in the story killed it for me.

If you’ve got nothing better to see, The Wrestler is good to see. It’ll give you something to talk about but you might be better off catching one of those crappy b-movies that are out now.