Depressing and hard to watch

Rating: 4/10 (25 June 2009)

You can tell from the rating that I did not care for this film. I didn't really expect to, not caring much for "professional" wrestling. (I did watch it when I was a kid, (Wahoo McDaniel, Johnny Valentine, Ivan Putski, etc.) This form of wrestling is a sordid business, which the film makes very clear. Mickey Rourke did put in a very good performance. He was utterly unrecognizable as the promising actor from the Eighties (Body Heat, Angel Heart, Barfly, etc.) I suppose that some years as a bad boxer can re-arrange one's face. Marisa Tomei was also very good putting some heart into the somewhat clichéd stripper role. And she looks fantastic. While I didn't care for the ending, I'm not sure that more exposition would have been any better. In short, the acting was usually first-rate, in a film that is depressing and hard to watch. There is certainly a place for such cinema, but I cannot recommend this film.