Fine, old-fashioned entertainment

Rating: 9/10 (15 April 2009)

With the recent controversy started over this film by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the dopes in the Iranian government will never get from seeing this flick is that the final grudge match in which the titular character, Randy "The Ram" Robinson takes on his foe "The Ayatollah" is really one of the funniest and most pointed satires at American xenophobia I have seen of late. But overall, even with the sex and drugs, "The Wrestler" remains what is probably the finest old-fashioned Hollywood offering of late, tracing its lineage all the way back to "The Set Up" and "Requiem for A Heavyweight". In fact, you could have made this film back in the 50s with Anthony Quinn or Robert Ryan in the lead.
Like those films, "The Wrestler" is a compelling narrative of wounded masculinity and spiritual redemption. Mickey Rourke stars as former 80s pro wrestling champ Randy "The Ram" Robinson, whose image seems to be a composite match-up of Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Jake "The Snake" Roberts. Now old, lonely and living in a trailer, with an estranged daughter he has not met in years and reduced to playing the minor circuit, a heart attack causes him to rethink his direction in life. Yet it is not long before Randy finds out that the ring is the only place where he will ever feel at home, and heads for a comeback fight with his old rival, from which he likely will never return...Marisa Tomei stars as Cassidy/Pam, the stripper with a heart of gold who befriends this broken down soul as the story takes place over the course of a New Jersey winter. Both of these figures are star pupils of the school of hard knocks, but while Tomei looks set to graduate, Randy may never get out alive because he has long ago made a choice that he can never run away from.
This is probably the first film to "get it" about pro wrestling, that beyond the colored tights and the buffoonery and the xenophobia and meanness that it displays and encourages, it's really an art that brings joy to a lot of people and that ironically, requires absolute sportsmanship to be a part of.
Tough, tender and uncompromising in its compassionate depictions of two individuals in professions that revolve around physical degradation in the name of artificial beauty. Despite its use of hand-held cinema-verite style in some shots, "The Wrestler" is in all the best ways, a remarkably old fashioned film. Proof that good storytelling never goes out of style.
And the Springsteen theme song is amazing, one of the best compositions of the Boss in a while.