Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #238 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-06-01
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 105 minutes

Synopsis
Darren Aronofsky directs this searing drama about a past-his-prime wrestler who tries to regain his earlier fame. Mickey Rourke (ANGEL HEART, SIN CITY) continues a career revival of his own as the fighter, while Oscar winner Marisa Tomei (IN THE BEDROOM, MY COUSIN VINNY) and Evan Rachel Wood (THIRTEEN, DOWN IN THE VALLEY) co-star. Rourke is Randy 'The Ram' Robinson, a one-time superstar of professional wrestling who's down on his luck, estranged from his teenage daughter (Wood) and clinging onto the remains of his career by appearing in brutally violent bouts that barely pay him enough to make the rent on his trailer park home. It soon becomes clear that his broken body is incapable of following through the determination of his plucky spirit and when he succumbs to a heart attack he finds himself at a crossroads where he must decide whether or not to continue his futile pursuit of celebrity or make amends with those that he has alienated.

After his somewhat ambitious flirtation with the science fiction genre in THE FOUNTAIN, director Aronofsky returns to Earth and back to the emotional human drama of his earlier REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Having fallen from grace in his own professional life, Rourke delivers a towering performance as Robinson; a man whose career trajectory is so close to the actor's own, the film is given a staggering level of poignancy.

Customer Reviews

Possible film of the year already!
`The Wrestler' stars Mickey Rourke as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a superstar wrestler from the 80's who is now living in a trailer park, has numerous health problems, is working in a supermarket to make ends meet and does weekend wrestling gigs in school gyms to keep him still in the game.

Although we're only 26 days into 2009, I can't help but think that it is going to take something really incredible to top this as my film of the year already...it is brilliant! "The Ram" is a gentle giant (much like Stallone in Rocky) and this is his heartbreaking tale of what it is like once you step out of the spotlight and how he copes with holding onto the one thing that he truly loves in life - wrestling.

A very clever and moving part of the story that I liked in particular is Randy's friend Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) who is a lapdancer and is a bit older than most of other strippers in the club, as it is sort of a parallel to what Randy is experiencing in his life too.

I don't know if I enjoyed this more because I was a wrestling fan back in the "Golden Era" (the days of Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior and The Legion of Doom) so I can appreciate a lot of what is going on on the wrestling side of it, but then again my friends who have also seen it loved it too and they have never watched wrestling in their lives.

Overall this is one of the best films I've have seen in a long, long time and I highly recommend it to anybody. Any awards that this film wins this year are definitely well deserved.

The fighter still remains
Impressed by Mickey Rourke's Golden Globe winning speech, I decided to go see this movie.

Randy 'The Ram' Robinson fought the Ayatollah in Madison Square Garden back in the 80s, and still battles today. Ill met by fate, bruised and battered, his sinewy muscles scarred, his bones creaking in protest he still has the fight, and like a One Trick Pony he sticks to what he knows. It's a desperate life.

As you may recall in Raging Bull, Robert De Niro put on about 40 pounds to play fighter Jake La Motta as he got older, and he won an Oscar for his dedication to the role.

Mickey Rourke does something no less astounding here, putting on huge bulk to assume the persona and convincing physique of a professional wrestler. It's the most amazing acting performance of the year. The lines between actor and character blur and disappear. The kind of pain you see on Randy's face cannot be pretended. It can only be relived from the actor's parallel experience, which is what makes Rourke's performance so compelling.

For female companionship, he goes to a local bar, where a fetching stripper played by Marisa Tomei, Academy Award winner for My Cousin Vinny, gives him a lap dance for a fee. He can barely make rent, yet he has priorities.

Marisa gives an incredibly authentic performance, and it's a welcome surprise see her take it off in the name of art. I applaud her courage in doing so. Her physique is simply amazing, and her body art is very intriguing.

Evan Rachel Wood plays his estranged daughter. Previously, she played the female lead part in Across The Universe, and already has a quite impressive filmography under her belt. Here she sports a different look, and gives a perfect performance.

Some of the wrestling sequences are truly outrageous, and not a little disturbing. Having cut my finger on a ham slicer early in life, seeing people operating ham slicers gives me the heebie jeebies. If you have a problem with the sight of blood, I caution you that there are some disturbing sequences in the movie.

The Academy's actor awards tend to go to actors in two types of role:

1.Psychopath- No Country for Old Men, The Usual Suspects, There Will Be Blood, Training Day, Silence of the Lambs.

2.Mentally Disabled, Social or Physical Handicap, overcomes great adversity or discrimination- Shine, As Good as It Gets, A Beautiful Mind, Ray, Scent of a Woman, Capote, Philadelphia, The Pianist, A Beautiful Life.

Randy definitely has a handicap, and last year was the year of the psychopath, with both Daniel Day Lewis, and Javier Bardem winning Oscar.

I hope you find this review helpful.

"I'm all alone, and I deserve to be all alone"
A one time famous wrestler at the top of his tree now finds himself living in a trailer park and struggling to pay the rent.

Randy "The Ram" re-assesses his life; after twenty years of decline he realises how much he has lost. He has no love in his life from either the stripper he would like to "make an honest woman" out of, nor from the daughter that wants nothing to do with him. His dreams of making it big again are fired up by his promoter who is arranging for a rematch of The Ram's most famous wrestling match - the glamour of which contrasts greatly with his job as a skivvy in a supermarket for a boss who enjoys spitting out sneering put downs.

The emptiness in his everyday life is more than compensated for by the warmth he receives in his life as a wrestler, revered by long-time fans and current professionals alike. He may be resorting to exhibition matches for just enough dollars to survive on, but it's a world where he is comfortable, respected, and a somebody. There are great scenes in the film 'back stage' where we see through the theatre of the sport to witness the strong camaraderie between the men who discuss what they will be doing - always at the forefront of their minds is their desire to entertain the fans. Wrestling is like an addiction to The Ram - and when you see how well he fits in, you can understand why.

Parallel to the tale of the ageing wrestler is the secondary story of Cassidy the stripper. She too is more than aware of her seniority in the stripping profession and for her it's a means to earn money for her family. The relationship between the two is dealt with beautifully, both are honest people who feel that they are at a stage in their lives where haven't quite arrived at where they thought their would have been.

This is no fairytale though - this is quite probably a film that many middle aged men can identify with. This isn't a film about wrestling, it's a film about growing old and trying to re-ignite some of the spark that over time starts to choke and splutter. The body may start to fail you but the passion is as strong as ever. Dealing with health problems and the very real possibility of an early death, The Ram has to decide between life and actually living.

In a nutshell: The Ram could not have been more perfectly cast. Mickey Rourke has so much in common with the character he portrays that he couldn't fail to bring him to life, and though the role doesn't lend itself to obvious displays of emotion - Rourke still manages to shoehorn it in. The script is subtle but clever enough to load each scene with emotive tension. Many may feel the ending was lazy, but it's open to interpretation - you can make the story your own. It may be called "The Wrestler" but this isn't a macho film - it's touching, in some ways tragic, and it added a human dimension to a sport I've never been particularly interested in ...until now.