The Wrestler

but could he beat john cena lol

looking forward to watching this film,big pro wreslting fan

when i was younger i was addicted to the backstage going ons
 
Whilst I thought this was ok, I didn't get the hype about it. It's like a poor mans Rocky without the feelgood factor and the ending was sudden to say the least. At the end everyone was sat there in silence waiting for something else, then when they realised there wasn't, I heard 3 people comment, 'well that was shit'.

I didn't think it was awful, but then I didn't come out thinking I'd watched a masterpiece. It was just a bit nothingy and sad. I'm not a wrestling fan, so maybe that was it.
 
there's a perfect quality DVD screener of it doing the rounRAB :)

i'm actually waiting until the cinema release because i really want to see it on the big screen
 
I just got back from seeing it and was underwhelmed by it to say the least. Mickey Rourke IS fantastic in it, particularly his outburst in the supermarket which really makes you feel for what he is going through. And for the most part i liked the direction of the film (particularly the scenes following Rourke from behind as if he was about to enter the ring), but it just didn't seem to have an engaging enough story.

Oh, and i really dislike Marisa Tomei, how she won an Oscar for anything is beyond me because she is just so unbelievably bland.

Rourke should at least get nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, but the film definitely doesn't deserve Best Film. Not by a long shot (in my opinion anyway).

To me it was just another case of Critics hyping something up near to Oscar season as being the next modern classic, but in reality it's really not that good (same goes for Slumdog Millionaire).
 
Hmm. I don't know how much of that can be attributed to Aronofsky. He captured the isolation of the character very well in the way he directed it - but I think most of the credit should go to Rourke, and then the person who wrote the script.



I felt the same about the father/daughter scenes. It all felt terribly underdeveloped. It was a waste of a great actress like Evan Rachel Wood, too! It was silly that one minute she hated him and hoped he died of a heart attack, the next he buys her a pea-coat and invites her for a walk on the beach and she's all "oh daddy, I love you!" Then he forgets to meet her for dinner and she gets psychotically angry again.

The daughter never felt like a character in her own right - just an extension of Randy's story, and a device to develop him and show his vulnerability and compassion.
 
I thought it was very good, and certainly having seen Slumdog at the weekend I'm hoping 2009 carries on this well!

I agree with the comments about the storyline with the daughter - it did feel a bit rushed and nowhere near well enough developed.

I thought Rouke was brilliant and agree with the comments about it being impossible to take your eyes off him, but actually I though Tomei was also very good too.

I also think the end was brilliant. The way it held on the blank screen for so long building up the 'will he wake up in the hospital' tension was superb and you could feel the tension in the cinema. The shock when everyone realised that no, he wasn't going to was palpable.
 
I think being a wrestling fan helps in that you'd know the story is 100% realistic. In the 80s WWE (then WWF) expected it's wrestlers to wrestle 7-8 times a week, and spend most of their time travelling from venue to venue (even now I remember reading an article about steve austin talking about wrestling 5 times in a week including on both coasts of the USA and in London, and that was in the late 90s), there was no union, few had pensions/savings and many were spending all of their money on drugs, to cope with the work schedule. Lots of them are dead now, but The Wrestler is pretty much dead on with the type of lifestyles some of them have now.
 
^^^ That would also explain why WWE Wrestlers Manu and R-Truth have recently been getting some rough treatment on Television and been forced to lose a lot of their recent matches. Vince is upset with their involvement in the film. R-Truth actually appears onscreen in the film and offers to by Rourke's character a drink. Manu's father is the one who trained Rourke for the role.

Vince hates anything that doesn't show the business in the same happy, perfect light he does. Look how he reacted to the Beyond the Mat film.
 
Exactly ..

I'm finding it hard to resist getting the screener .. i've only seen a handful of clips of the film so far, but i'm determined to see it on the big screen ..
 
The screener is pretty awesome quality.... Unfortunately I probably won't get to see this in the cinema, as my local one doesn't get many films at all (Stornoway, 1 screen, 1 film per fortnight) - Quantum of Solace is finally arriving next week though :cool:

I don't know if the wife would let me drag her to Inverness just to watch The Wrestler though......

AH well, I'll be buying the DVD on day of release as always!
 
Saw this today and i can completely understand why Mickey Rourke has been receiving a lot of praise for this film.

Her performance is nothing short of spectacular! He really was Randy the Ram and his character was completely believable!

I honestly can't think of any other actor who could have played that role. Really hope he gets the Oscar.

The film itself was great but felt more like a documentary than anything else but nonetheless it moves you.

The ending, what can you say. It prepares you for the inevitable.
 
i watched it this afternoon and, as a wrestling fan of over 20 years, i loved it.

i've read many, many autobiographies of wrestlers and this really did capture the life perfectly.

i was mildly amused that i had to explain some of the terms to my mate - when the ram was going over the first match and his opponent came up with an idea to get cheap heat, my mate said "what's cheap heat?" :)

but you literally did feel that the character was just broken down - the scene where he was at the fan convention where he looked around at everyone with their various injuries, and then the guy with the colostomy bag was very sad.

i loved the scene as well when he was making his way down to the deli counter as well and the crowd noise was playing faintly in the background so it felt like he was going out for a match.

great, great film.
 
Seen the screener of this recently and thought it was a fantastic film, the only part of it i thought was the weak point was the lass who played his daughter, i didn't think her performance was particularly noteworthy but apart from that, a film well worth seeing and if there's any justice then Mickey Rourke should win an award or two for his role as Randy "The Ram" Robinson.
 
Back
Top