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DVDfever.co.uk – The Wrestler Blu-ray reviewDom Robinson reviews
Optimum Home EntertainmentBlu-ray: 
DVD:
- Cert:
- Running time: 110 minutes
- Year: 2008
- Released: June 2009
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 12 plus extras
- Picture: 1080p High Definition
- Sound: 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio Lossless
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Super 16)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: BD50
- Price: £24.99 (Blu-ray); £19.99 (DVD)
- Extras: “In The Ring” feature, Interview with Mickey Rourke, Trailer
- Vote and comment on this film:View Comments
Director:
- Darren Aronofsky
(Fortune Cookie, The Fountain, Pi, Protozoa, Requiem for a Dream, Supermarket Sweep, The Wrestler)
Producers:
- Darren Aronofsky and Scott Franklin
Screenplay:
- Robert D. Siegel
Original Score :
- Clint Mansell
Cast :
- Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson: Mickey Rourke
Cassidy: Marisa Tomei
Stephanie: Evan Rachel Wood
Lenny: Mark Margolis
Wayne: Todd Barry
Nick Volpe: Wass Stevens
Scott Brumberg: Judah Friedlander
The Ayatollah: Ernest Miller
Necro Butcher: Dylan Keith Summers
Tommy Rotten: Tommy Farra
Lex Lethal: Mike Miller
From out of nowhere, Mickey Rourke has made a slow comeback over the last few years, but he’s at his best in a long time with The Wrestler.
As we join Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson (Rourke), it’s 20 years on from his glory days and we see the man, himself,making a comeback for the fans. He knows his best days are behind him, but he can still bring in the crowds, and that’sall that’s important to him. However, his personal life’s turned to crap and he’s living out of a trailer. All he’s gotto look forward to is just thinking about old times and a potential rematch with one of his biggest opponents ever
Inbetween we see him eeking out a meagre living doing basic manual labour, moving boxes about, putting rubbish food intoplastic containers at a deli counter. We also see him getting hooked on prescription medicines that cost a fortune underthe counter, as well as steroids. Vanity insists that he gets his hair bleached and goes on a sunbed. Reality kicks inwhen he has to sport a hearing aid.
Thirty mins in, he’s covered in blood throughout the course of a fight, and it all looks incrediblygross! Okay, so I know this film will do things for effect, and that it’s showing what goes on at hardcore wrestlingmatches, but because there’s bits of glass and barbed wire ripping the Ram’s flesh apart, it has a fantastic level ofrealism. He clearly doesn’t feel good about having to put himself through this hell in order to make a buck.
As such, he ends up in hospital to have a heart bypass and is told his heart is not in great shape and if hecontinues to wrestle, then it’ll kill him. Hence, it’s time to reattach family ties with his daughter, Stephanie(Evan Rachel Wood), which have long-since been broken.
Mickey Rourke is a strange-looking creature these days after butchering his face with plastic surgery, but at leasthere it can be used to good effect as a man beaten up by both life and his job. Marisa Tomei, as Randy’s friend,looks fantastic in the buff as she gives lapdances. She 44 and that rhymes with “Phwoar” (bit cheesy, I know but it’strue!). However, her character, Cassidy, is also feeling her age as it’s the younger girls who get the most clientswhile she’s feeling similarly over the hill in a competitive world that thrives on youth. Evan Rachel Wood is also wortha watch here, but without giving away the plot, she wasn’t in it as much as I expected.
All those involved with this film were clearly dedicated as it had a tight shoot of 35 days and a very low budget ofaround $5-7m.As such, Rourke and Bruce Springsteen, who provided the title track for the movie, reportedly worked for free, and W.Axl Rosealso donated the use of Guns N Roses’ Sweet Child of Mine for no charge.
Overall, The Wrestler has a great low-key style which does away with incidental music and is all the betterfor it as we follow Randy’s story. It’s also the kind of film that could’ve been turned into an unnecessary,self-indulgent 3hr director’s cut but Darren Aronofsky has fashioned a great drama that’s neatly told within 105mins before the end credits kick in. That said, I don’t think it’s a BAFTA-winning performance from Rourke, but thenI think that was just a token gesture for the fact he missed out withAngel Heart. That said, Rourke certainly turns in a fantasticperformance and there’s a moment involving a razor blade which I won’t spoil here, but was done for real.
Mostly shot on hand-held camera, that does give a certain feel to the film that works well, but the print doesn’tfeel Blu-ray-sharp as a result of both that and the grainy effect applied, although it’s still good. The film ispresented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen frame. For the record, I’m watching on a Panasonic37″ Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
The sound is in DTS 5.1 and is fantastic for the wrestling scenes and everything you’d be looking for aurally, as arethe nightclub scenes for Cassidy’s job, while the rest are mostly dialogue-driven with speech coming through without ahitch.
The extras are as follows:
- In The Ring (42:42):A long feature that covers how the 35-day filming process went, where they filmed and also contains chat from key castand crew members, including the fact the film wasn’t storyboarded so they just set up scenes and let them roll howeverthey turned out, which allowed for some additional creative freedom and helps tell a sort-of documentary style about it.
A major problem with this feature is that it isn’t chaptered – especially since it’s divided up into topics, so ifyou stop watching part-way through and want to go back to a certain point, it requires fast-forwarding 🙁
- Interview with Mickey Rourke (15:45):Done in a Q&A style with questions posed in text onscreen before Mickey appears to give the answer.
- Trailer (2:27): Presented in anamorphic 2.35:1.
However, at the start of the disc comes one thing I abhor – trailers. These should should be part of the extras and NOTshoved before the main menu. We are not in the age of rental video. Hence, the titles featured won’t get mentioned here,even though one was a film that looks interesting. Another was an advert for a TV channel(!)
The menu mixes sound and images from the film in a neat way, there are English subtitles but the Chaptering isappalling with just 12 over the near-two hours.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.