A Review of the DVD The Wrestler

Robin Randzinski is a broken down man. He sits in a chair, all rippling muscles and tight spandex, with his long blond locks cascading down his shoulders. They should be strong shoulders, given his build, but his head is slumped. His shoulders are slumped. He looks like a man who has been beaten. He is known by another name, however. To most people he has Randy "The Ram" Robinson and, at one time, he was at the top of his game and performed in front of thousands.

This is the world that Darren Arronofsky, he of "Requiem for a Dream" and "The Fountain," takes us in the powerful film "The Wrestler" that proves, once and for all, that Mickey Rourke is a major talent as an actor. By now, you may already know about this movie. It was heralded as the legitimate return of Rourke (everyone seem to have forgotten about his powerhouse performance in "Sin City") and it won him award after award. He seemed to be a shoo-in for the Oscar and then Sean Penn won for "Milk."

I haven't seen "Milk" as of this writing. For all I know that is an amazing and uplifting and powerful performance. However, unless Penn manages to turn lead into gold, for real, during the course of that film, it will be hard for me to agree that it is a performance more worthy of an award than Rourke's in this film.

Rourke plays, essentially, a version of himself. Remember, there was a time when he was the Golden Boy of Hollywood. It looked like he was ready to take the movie world by storm. He had a handsome face and powerful acting chops. Then, suddenly, he stepped out of the spotlight, spent time as a professional boxer, became moody and difficult and sort of vanished from the movies. All of that becomes water under a very high bridge with this movie.

The Ram is no longer the man he was. We see the clippings that he keeps in his van that show how things used to be. During the 1980s, and the time when wrestling was huge (it still is, but the 80s really were a kind of golden age), he was the biggest name around. His face-off against his arch rival, The Ayatollah, was

one of the biggest spectacles on pay-per-view. That was a long time ago, however, and like many people probably believe about former WWF wrestlers, everyone things the Ram has retired.

He hasn't. Instead he plays for a few dozen or maybe a few hundred people in small independent matches in VFW halls and high school gyms. He faces off against younger and hungrier opponents, all of them still looking for their shot at the big time, and he makes a few hundred bucks at a time. He is constantly locked out his trailer. His one shining spot is when he gets to spend time with a stripper played by the dazzling Marissa Tomei. He has a daughter, played by Evan Rachel Wood, but she can't stand him. Plus, now, his body is starting to fail him. The years of rough treatment, constant pounding, and steroid usage, are taking its toll.

The movie is unflinching in showing this world to us. The match where he faces off against another wrestler under extreme conditions will leave you shaking. Witness these men as they land on tables filled with thumb-tacks, smash each other through glass, hit each other with barbed wire, and then use staple guns on each other. The fact that real matches happen with this kind of thing will keep you awake at night.

While Rourke's performance is worthy of all of the praise, the secondary characters are what help define him as a person and a performer. Wood is outstanding as the daughter, Stephanie, who still wants to connect to her father despite the fact he has broken her heart again and again and again. Yet, when he shows up at her house bearing her gifts, she is willing to let him melt her heart yet again.

Then there is Tomei. Somehow she is managing to look better and better as she gets older. She spends a good portion of the movie naked, and she looks fantastic. However, her character is supposed to be older and showing her age. Thus, she and The Ram, are in similar circumstances. Both of them only know how to do one thing, both of them need to get out, and both of them know their time is going to run out because their bodies will regardless of their desires.

This is a very powerful movie. It is heartbreaking. It is gut-wrenching. It is memorable. I think it may go down as a classic of its time, perhaps reviewed in film classes somewhere down the road.

The DVD comes with a remarkable "making-of" documentary that gives me the ammunition I need to make such a claim as that. They used real people who really do these wrestling matches in front of real wrestling crowds to film this movie. They never knew what was going to happen, and were there to film it when it did. It is a remarkable piece of filmmaking and Arronofsky proves once again what a remarkable talent he is.

This is not a happy movie. You will likely not come away feeling warm and fuzzy. At the same time, this is a performance that must be seen, must be appreciated, and should continue to be rewarded.