A watered down version of Rocky Balboa (2006 film) without the training montage.

Rating: 6/10 (8 September 2008)

I stood in line for three hours at the rush line hoping that there would be empty seats for the North American premiere of The Wrestler. By the time I got into the theater I was just glad to have sat down. Then Aronofsky walked on stage to introduce his film and I was back on my feet again, clapping as loud as I can. He was friendly, funny and at first sounded humble when he explained to the audience that the film would in no way live up to the hype the audience had just created since the theater was just recently filled with non stop applaud for what seemed to be twenty minutes. He told us that we were going to be disappointed and we all thought he was joking or being humble, but we were wrong. The Wrestler tries to stay away from the clichés of sports films, but by the end of the film you are left with a watered down version of Rocky Balboa (2006 film) without the training montage.
The jokes in the film were lackluster, dull one-liners, as was most of the script.Evan Rachel Wood brought absolutely NOTHING to this film. The film takes about twenty minutes screen time going through how wrestling is fake, but people do get hurt, and they do bleed, while performing stunts. And by the end of the film you are like I already knew that wrestling was fake, but who really cares about how they get it done and you are left thinking about how empty this film was.
The film is about Rourke's character a washed up wrestler who is dealing with life after being on top, the issues of being alone, finding someone to love, trying to patch things with his estranged daughter, and finding the strength and courage to fight his last match (20 years in the making). I can see that he has a tough life, and has to sleep in his van at times, patches his coat with duct tape, spends most of his money on performance enhancing drugs, strippers and booze. But this doesn't make you pity Rourke's character, you just feel like he is an idiot and this is all his fault. If Rourke did not have such a lovable personality this film would not have worked at all. The two other sub stories of his daughter and stripper are both clichéd and you don't really care for them or their stories. The final match that the film is supposed to be leading to, Rourke's last match, there is almost no build up to it and there is really no climax either. The film will probably be dubbed as the best wrestling film thus far created, but that doesn't say much. There are only a handful of wrestling films, what are you going to compare it to? No Holds Barred, Ready to Rumble or Nacho Libre? Aronofsky is a very talented director and it feels like he just coasted through this film. The film was definitely not hard to direct, there was no complex characters, shots or scenery. It looked like a made for TV film, no wonder he didn't find a North American distributor. Aside from everything that was horrible about the film I do have to mention that Rourke was not bad. I liked his tired/nostalgic character who didn't complain, but try to live with his mistakes. He gave one of his best performances in a long time, but that doesn't say much cause Rourke is not a great actor and he will in no way collect an Oscar for this.
Everybody in the audience laughed at all the jokes and clapped very enthusiastically at the end of the film, and I was like what is going on, is everybody here retarded? I turned to my left and found one of my friends clapping along with the audience and I asked him if he liked the film and he shook his head to say no and kept clapping. I still can't understand the ovation. I would give the film a 6 out of 10 because I really like Arnofsky. The film will probably take in 25 or 30 million max, when they find a distributor and I say when because its only a matter of time the studios realize that there is a large wrestling fan base (WWE) and this will probably be like Pulp Fiction to them, (keeping in mind the only other wrestling films that made it to theaters were Ready to Rumble and Nacho Libre otherwise I would not compare this film to Pulp Fiction unless I was talking about how much better Pulp Fiction is).
I hoped that Arnofsky would be taking questions after the film, but he hastily left. I wanted to ask him what the hell happened. Aronofsky is, or now was by far one of my favorite directors. Pi was amazing and actually inspired me to make a low budget film to get myself out there. Requiem for a Dream and the Fountain (which is my second favorite film of all time) were also just as groundbreaking even though the Fountain wasn't as well received as it should have been, probably because it was too complex for the general public, but The Wrester? Come on! What made him make this movie? Did he feel that he was obligated to make a mainstream film after the box office failure of the Fountain? I guess directors have to pay property taxes too. But instead of complaining I should also be thanking Arnofsky because when I left to theater I was motivated to start writing again and pick up on my script, because if a talented director like Arnofsky can pick a horrible script like The Wrestler and put it on film, I am sure I can get some of my thoughts and ideas onto the silver screen.