One of the Best Sports Movies Ever Made!

Rating: 9/10 (29 June 2009)

This is one of the best sports movies ever made. But 'Rocky' (1976) it's not. It's a graphic, realistic film shot in documentary style about an aging wrestler confronting his mortality and his failed life at the end of his career ("20 Years Later"), and near his own end.
As a long time wrestling fan, when I received the DVD, I clicked on selected scenes first-- awfully graphic and depressing. I didn't think I'd want to sit and watch the whole movie, but the next day I made the time to view it, and was rewarded for having done so. It's an expertly crafted film with outstanding performances, and an intelligent, respectful treatment of its themes.
First of all, it doesn't seem like a movie, because it's shot like a documentary-- the use of hand held cameras that show or follow behind Mickey Roarke (as Robin who wrestles as 'Randy the Ram'); the fast paced editing and jumps in time and place; and hardly any music at all (hints of 'Dogma 95'), so that many of the silences, (including Ram's continual heavy exhaling) can speak volumes about isolation, loneliness, and having to live with who you are and what you've become. For over 90% of the movie, it's a real suspension of disbelief -- we think we're watching the real thing!
Thankfully, we didn't have Nicholas Cage in the part, then we'd know it's a movie, seeing him doing his pained acting schtick, so wonderfully parodied by John Travolta as him in 'Face/Off' (1997). Totally unrecognizable as 'Mickey Roarke, the Actor', Roarke stole the movie 'Sin City' (2005), and he's even better here. You believe he is Ram because he looks so appropriately old, puffy and wasted, and he's clearly speaking from the heart. This is not the sweet faced actor Mickey Roarke from the 80s and 90s; here he looks and is the real deal. A great acting job.
The film is about getting old. We see this throughout the film. Marissa Tomei plays Pam, who uses the 'stage name' Cassidy as an almost too old pole and lap dancer ("You're as old as my mother!" one customer yells) who's confronting her own choices about aging. Although we know it's her acting in a movie, her character is reality based and convincing, as she tries to follow the number one rule of the sex trade: "Don't get personally involved with customers!" Their two lives parallel all during the film, with both of them choosing a different path at the end.
The film is so intelligently and respectfully constructed. We see images of time passed by every where-- Ram's trailer is full of audio cassettes; he plays an ancient Nintendo game (specially made for the movie!) with a young boy who says, "This game is so old!"; he sells old VHS tapes at wrestling events; he even drives an old Dodge Ram; and in a fantastic and poignant scene he talks, walks and dances with his daughter in an old, empty, deserted amusement park, and of course, there's Randy's 20 Years Later rematch with 'The Ayatollah,' a symbol of anti-Iran feelings of the 1980s.
And why does the scene with Randy's daughter, Stephanie, (Evan Rachel Wood in a great mini performance) angrily banishing him from her life seem so familiar? As noted in IMDb, it clearly parallels, and in fact is taken from, Jake 'The Snake' Roberts' painful meetings with the daughter he forgot in the wrestling documentary 'Beyond the Mat' (1999).
The reality of the professional 'kayfabe' wrestling world is shown in fast paced documentary style, (and even includes the garbage wrestling of CZW) with Randy the Ram, actually Mickey Roarke (!), being a combination of Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage (both 80s icons).
And what does it all mean? After having suffered a near fatal heart attack, Randy retires and gets a job working in a deli. He tries to repair his personal life with Cassidy and Stephanie, but fails. Tired of being a mousy deli clerk, even denying who he is to a customer, he decides to do the Ayatollah rematch, even at the risk of a fatal heart attack. Having lost everything else, in the ring he declares how his life in the ring constituted the real meaning of who and what he is. As he feels and hears the piercing whine that signalled the first heart attack, he decides to go for it anyway, and performs his Ram Jam dive off the top rope to------ oops! the movie ends there! It's not just as you sow so shall ye reap; or what goes around comes around. As Dylan Thomas said, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light!" You've got to boldly be who you are.
I give this movie a 9 and 1/2. One of the greatest sports movies ever made!