Great Movie, Great Character Study. Mickey Rourke at his Best

Rating: Null/10 (10 February 2011)

Normally I despise stuff like professional wrestling and hate anything to do with New Jersey. But this movie and script is so powerful it made me respect both. Pro wrestling is a nothing more than crude slapstick pretending to be a sport. But the wrestlers have to have some athletic ability and physique, but they are more like stunt men than trapeze artists. They take a beating in those stunts as well as many have hurt themselves abusing steroids and other drugs they used to bulk up, as well as sundry recreational drug use. Also, while the cream of the WWF are quite well off, the bottom rung of the "sport" is like Babe Ruth Baseball, they earn a couple hundred for a match in a VFW Hall on Friday then back to some miserable grind of a job next Monday.
Mickey Rourke was a natural for this role. His life paralleled the Randy the Ram. The Ram is an over the hill pro wrestler who is one step away from homelessness. He lives in a trailer park, works during the week in a supermarket and does bush league local "fights" in small venues like Legion Halls or church gyms. He has a heart attack after one gig and is warned not to continue in his trade less he may die the next time. But the time in the ring and the camaraderie with the other "fighters" (actors) is the only thing that makes his life worth living. His social life is based on courting a stripper, Cassidy played by Marisa Tomei but he does seem to be a favorite uncle type to the kids in his trailer park.
Facing his mortality, the Ram tries to mend bridges with his estranged daughter Stephanie, played by Evan Rachel Wood, fails. Even though he and the stripper seem to be soul mates, she has to spurn him out of professional etiquette of not messing with customers. They both have similar trades, providing an exaggerated act based on their masculinity/femininity to crowds of low brow gawkers, where some of them don't see it as an act and them as actors.
What is beautiful about it is the three principles carry it off so well. It's an overworked charade to say that a movie is so "real", especially in these days of "reality" TV, but it felt that way in everything from the sets, costumes, the use of real wrestling matches and other location shots. Even the pay phones the Ram uses, since he can't even afford cell service, are located on a real deserted, abandoned railway passenger platform by an abandoned railroad tunnel and line. I had no trouble identifying and liking the characters even though they chose a life that was essentially a charade. They tried for the dream their way and failed. It was a beautiful elegy to a decent common man, no hero, without one shred of hype or Hollywood glitz.