The all-time list of great sports movies is not that long. “Rocky”, “Field of Dreams”, “Hoosiers”, “Raging Bull”, and “Bull Durham” stand out. Add “The Wrestler” to that short list.
Released early this year, the film realistically depicts an aging professional wrestler who should get out of the business for health reasons but does not because he lives for his fans, it's the only life he knows and he needs the money.
Professional wrestling is not true sport because the matches are fixed, but wrestlers are strong, agile athletes. The movie shows backstage camaraderie among the fighters that belies the brutal animosity they display in the ring. If you don't like to see blood, then you may not want to watch this gritty cinema masterpiece.
Mickey Rourke plays Randy “the Ram” Robinson, a star in the 1980s who didn't save enough money to retire and struggles financially. He gets by working small wrestling shows and part-time in a grocery store while living in a rundown trailer park.
During his heyday, he was hugely successful but now he is in his 50s and fading. Thanks to steroids and tanning salons he remains a great physical specimen, but the years of physical abuse have taken their toll on his heart and back. He also struggles emotionally, trying to reconcile with the daughter he abandoned and establishing a romantic relationship with a single 40-something stripper/mother.
Although the movie is about wrestling, the sport is only a vehicle to examine the human condition. As Dirty Harry said, “A man has to know his limitations.” As Jack Kerouac explained, “We have to move on to the later phases of our lives.” The Ram did neither.
While 50-some-year-old wrestlers and 40-some-year-old strippers are conceivable, 60-year-old wrestlers and 50-year-old strippers are, well, I don't want to imagine that.
“The Wrestler” is a modern day tragedy. The two main characters are both likable even though they do despicable things. They are deeply flawed, trapped in lifestyles and careers they chose for themselves decades earlier when their bodies were in their prime but now barely making it with their futures dim and dreams evaporating.
The movie is rated R for violence, sex, and drug use and is not suitable for young people.
I rented the DVD and watched it recently. With the movie still fresh in my mind, I now read that a former great football player is coming out of retirement, not to play football but mixed martial arts. Forty-seven-year-old Herschel Walker has signed with Strikeforce.
My first thought was, “Oh, no! He's too old!” He may be the best 47-year-old athlete in the world but he's still 47. MMA is real fighting, unlike professional wrestling. However, UFC superstar Randy Couture is 46 and look at him.
My second thought was, “Go for it, Herschel!” You only live once and want to accomplish as much as you can. See Brett Favre. Or Jason Tarkong.
Walker has a brown belt in taekwondo so is not completely unfamiliar with fighting. But the ending to “The Wrestler” is not pretty. I wonder if Herschel saw the movie. If he did, perhaps he would reconsider.
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The Wrestler
