Party like a Fireman!

No secret, for me personally, Mickey Rourke is only the 4th or 5th most interesting thing about The Wrestler. I kept wanting Randy the Ram to be a supporting character in a movie about Cassidy’s life. I wanted to spend more time with Evan Rachel Wood in Stephanie’s life. I found Aronofsky’s choices much more interesting than Randy’s or Rourke’s. But every time we came to another wrestling scene I felt the same impatience as I did whenever Robert Downey Jr. covered up his wit and charm in a purple metal can. Randy the Ram, for me, was a superhero with no powers. Someone who can’t fly, but keeps jumping off the roof, flapping his arms.

But I know I’m in the minority, so I’m actually a lot more curious about what other people think about this movie than I am in the movie itself. So I’d like to take a last glance back at The Wrestler, and remind myself of this caution: Objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear.

With The Wrestler tailgating Milk’s back bumper, bearing down on the evening like the truck driver in Duel, here’s a review by a genuine wrestling afficianado, Jed Shaffer, a buddy of our good buddy RRA. The same way I’m more interested in what Aronofsky is saying about wrestling that what Rourke is showing me, I get more out a review that confirms my gut feelings: Mickey Rourke didn’t make The Wrestler; but Aronofsky’s movie made the most of Mickey Rourke.

THE WRESTLER — ****1/4 out of five stars.

Professional wrestling polarizes opinions; those who love it will die on the sword for it, and the detractors will stop at nothing to tear it down. So it stands to reason that a movie about wrestling would do no less. Perhaps because of this, wrestling has never been shown in any light other then as a joke or a source of shame.

Darron Aronofsky’s THE WRESTLER changes that.

If you’re not a wrestling fan, you need not feel hesitation about seeing this movie. While Aronofsky took every effort to show respect to these athletes, he also didn’t set out to make a love letter to the business. Because, deep down, THE WRESTLER, despite the title, isn’t about wrestling. Not at all.

The movie centers on Randy “The Ram” Robinson (played by Mickey Rourke). In the 80’s, The Ram ruled professional wrestling, and was a bonafide cross-promotional superstar, like Hulk Hogan was or The Rock/Dwayne Johnson is now. His matches sold out arenas and stadiums across the country, especially his epic showdown with his greatest rival, The Ayatollah. He had his own action figure, his own Nintendo game; he was a star. But there was one opponent who he couldn’t pin.

Time.

The years ran on … injuries mounted up … new stars were born … and by the time the movie begins, we are at present day: The Ram is no longer wrestling for tens of thousands of dollars, in front of tens of thousands of adoring fans in Madison Square Garden. He’s in his 40’s, fighting in a gymnasium, not even making enough to cover the rent payment for his double-wide, and he’s got a part time job as a back-room stock hauler in a local grocery.

He is good friends with a stripper named Pam (Marisa Tomei), although he knows her by her stage name, Cassidy. Like The Ram, Cassidy isn’t as young as she used to be, and she’s seeing her salary take a hit. They have a bond that seems to go beyond the strip joint, but Cassidy/Pam insists on keeping it an in-the-club relationship only. And he has a grown daughter (played by Evan Rachel Wood) who, because the business kept him on the road and away from home, loathes him.

As the first act plays out, two facts are made plainly clear: The Ram can’t let go of the business (even if it has let go of him), and he will do whatever it takes to get back in the spotlight. This includes taking drugs (bought from a colleague) to keep a youthful body, and by participating in insanely dangerous matches where dangerous items are used, such as thumbtacks, plates of glass, barbed wire and staple guns. He does this because it pays extra, and he hopes it may get agents from the big promotions to notice him again. It is after one of these matches — having had shards of glass and thumbtacks removed from his body — that The Ram faces a crisis that makes him re-evaluate his life; he has a heart attack that requires a double bypass. Doctors tell him wrestling is too much a strain on his heart and he has to retire. What follows is an emotional tug of war: on one side, his honest desire to move on and make a life outside of wrestling, including reconnecting with his daughter and perhaps building a relationship with Pam. On the other side is the lure of the ring; the 20th anniversary of his fight with The Ayatollah is coming up, and a promoter wants to hold a rematch in honor of it, and he can’t shake the siren’s call.

If you’re reading and you’re not a wrestling fan, here’s the thing: take out all the wrestling references. Make it about a football player with bad knees, or a chess player lsoing mental faculties. The wrestling is just a means to an end; this is a character study about a man who makes his living in a field where there is a shelf life, and he is having trouble accepting that. Shakespere fans would call this a tragedy, as the hero, however noble, suffers personal ruin due to his faults.

Originally, this movie had Nicolas Cage attached, and had that come to pass, it would’ve been an unmitigated disaster. Rourke was born to play this role. In the first 10 minutes, you are sucked in; Rourke exudes the sadness and the weariness of The Ram’s life. When Rourke is happy, his face lights up like a little kid, and your heart jumps. And when he crashes, you’ll choke back tears. There’s a reason why he won a Golden Globe, and he deserves it.

Credit also to Aronofsky’s direction choice of filming the movie in a documentary style; the grainy resolution and the shaky camera work makes the world of The Ram seem much more real then a crisp, HD digital print could do. Other choices Aronofsky made really help drive the nail home; the choice of music (lots of 80’s hair metal like Motley Crue and RATT) helps cement that The Ram is stuck in the 80’s. There’s a short passage in the first ten minutes of The Ram driving home after a match; it’s dark, and he’s listening to Cinderella’s “Don’t Know What You Got Till It’s Gone”. He never says anything, nothing happens in the car. It’s just maybe 15 seconds of driving. But it helps illustrate the lonely life on the road, and the song underscores The Ram’s life.

If there is one fault to the movie, it’s Wood’s performance. Her anger and defiance feels forced and wooden. It’s the first I’ve seen of her, so I don’t know how much is her, but I never bought her. However, everyone else — from the writers to the actors and all points in between — hit a home run with this one.

This isn’t liable to convert haters to wrestling fans; the behind-the-curtain glimpses aren’t flattering … but they are real. These men who fall through tables and onto thumbtacks and break bones and tear muscles and bleed … they are human beings. But Aronofsky wasn’t trying to do that; he was trying to tell a story of a man and how he deals with his faults. Like life, not everything is perfect, and there is no Hollywood ending. To that effect, Aronofsky did right by the business and painted the most realistic portrait he could, all as a backdrop to tell this man’s story. If you’re a fan, seeing it is already on your to-do list. But don’t let wrestling keep you away if you’re not; you’ll be robbing yourself of one of the grittiest, most honest, most gripping films in recent memory.

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