Watch it for Rourke and Tomei

Rating: Null/10 (10 February 2009)

There is really only one reason to go watch The Wrestler, and that's to see Mickey Rourke's screen comeback as Randy 'The Ram" Robinson. I can remember almost nothing of his earlier career but his return has certainly elicited acres of press coverage, and I was curious to know what all the fuss was about. I also have to admit a certain grudging admiration for anyone who can put himself through the kind of physical torture that I suspect making this movie must have been.
There is nothing especially profound to be gleaned from this movie. Don't expect a damning critique on the morality of sadomasochistic wrestling as entertainment. The story isn't terribly original, nonetheless it is done well, given the limits of the genre. It's unpretentious entertainment. Old pro wrestler, down on his luck and surviving on past fame, tries for one last big comeback. His life contains various trashed relationships - including a daughter who doesn't want to know him because he's been a lousy father - and he patches himself up physically with copious amounts of steroids, cocaine, a fake tan and rather enviable blond highlights. Mentally he's a basket case, a tough guy prone to sentimentality and weeping, with truly appalling taste in clothes.
His best friend is a lap dancing stripper (an excellent and brave performance from Marisa Tomei) and he makes ends meet working in a deli. At night he returns to his trailer park home, unless he's late with the rent, when the landlord locks him out and he sleeps in his truck. After one particularly brutal bout of extreme wrestling he suffers a heart attack and nearly quits, but the thought of a rematch with his nemesis The Ayatollah, brings him back to the ring one last time. You've seen it all before but it manages to stay remarkably fresh, and the writers and director deserve full credit for that.
Personally I can't stand pro wrestling, and the thought that there are people out there in the real world who actually enjoy watching grown men jump off step ladders onto each other's bellies, roll around on barbed wire and cut themselves with razor blades, makes me despair for the future of the human race. This is not a film for the squeamish. It's gripping and entertaining in a high quality Friday Night Fluff kind of way, but it didn't stay with me long after the lights went on.
Whether or not Mickey Rourke deserves an Oscar is another question entirely. Does he truly get under the skin of a character or is he basically playing an extreme version of his younger self? After all, he's been a boxer, wrestling isn't that much of a stretch from boxing. He certainly deserves a nomination, but if I had an Oscar vote, it would be going to Sean Penn for Milk.