FemaleFirst.co.uk: DVD: The Wrestler [DVD] [2008]

The Wrestler [DVD] [2008]
enlarge	Director: Darren Aronofsky Actors: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood Studio: Optimum Home Entertainment Category: DVD List Price: ~~£19.99~~ Buy New: £4.20 as of 21/11/2009 17:30 GMT details You Save: £15.79 (79%) New (22) Used (5) from £3.49 Seller: lobigo-de Rating: 53 reviews Sales Rank: 774 Format: PAL Languages: English (Unknown), English (Original Language) Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over Region: 2 Number Of Discs: 1 Running Time: 105 Minutes Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2 Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 EAN: 5055201806994 ASIN: B001PR1DU8 Theatrical Release Date: 2008 Release Date: June 1, 2009 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days


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Customer Reviews: Showing reviews 1-5 of 53 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...11 Next » Possible film of the year already! January 26, 2009 KM (England) 60 out of 69 found this review helpful `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. br / br /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. br / br /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. br / br /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. br / br /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. br / The fighter still remains January 20, 2009 L. Power (San Francisco) 56 out of 66 found this review helpful Impressed by Mickey Rourke's Golden Globe winning speech, I decided to go see this movie. br / br /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. br / br /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. br / br /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. br / br /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. br / br /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. br / br /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. br / br /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. br / br /The Academy's actor awards tend to go to actors in two types of role: br / br /1.Psychopath- No Country for Old Men, The Usual Suspects, There Will Be Blood, Training Day, Silence of the Lambs. br / br /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. br / br /Randy definitely has a handicap, and last year was the year of the psychopath, with both Daniel Day Lewis, and Javier Bardem winning Oscar. br / br /I hope you find this review helpful. br / Classic January 18, 2009 Alex DeLarge (Dublin, Ireland) 19 out of 25 found this review helpful The Wrestler is a terrific piece of cinema. A triumph. br / br /Randy "The Ram" is a clapped out, skelp-faced, steroid guzzling, 80's throwback trailer-dwelling wrestler. Fame and money have long since been flushed down the pan. br / br /Down on his luck and on his uppers, he's scraping together some money by doing nostalgia bouts at weekends and working a supermarket job during the week. His only conversation is with his favourite lapdancer at a local club. br / br /Things can only get better, yes? br / br /Well... no. Randy tries to repair his broken relationship with his estranged daughter. He tries to get lapdancer Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) to be a real lover and not a paid dancer. He succeeds in both of these goals. To an extent. But for some reason it just isn't going to be that simple. br / br /The Wrestler is like Rocky Balboa's feral New Jersey cousin. There's no big money prize for Randy "The Ram", but way, way more of a film. Uncompromising avoidance of cliche, top notch acting from Rourke and Tomei, great story, great camera work. Affords its characters dignity. br / br /THIS FILM IS A BULLDOZER, WITH A WRECKING BALL ATTACHED br / br / Exploitation at its best January 21, 2009 OEJ (England) 15 out of 20 found this review helpful A drama about a professional wrestler whose best days lie decades in his mostly miserable past, and who now struggles to make ends meet by appearing in minor wrestling bouts and working part-time in a grocery shop. His doctor warns him that he should give up wrestling otherwise it will kill him, and he attempts to come to terms with his failing life outside the ring by trying to reconcile with the daughter he abandoned in childhood and forming a relationship with a stripper he has a liking for. Amid these pathetic struggles he receives an unexpected offer of a high-profile rematch with his arch-nemesis from the 1980s , The Ayatollah, which could just be his ticket back to stardom and financial security. br / br /It's difficult to separate the character of Randy "The Ram" Robinson from Mickey Rourke himself, which is one of the reasons why it's harder still to imagine anyone but Rourke making this film as good as it is, indeed it might not have been made without him. He's absolutely perfect for the part, although he had to do some pretty serious bulking-up in readiness. There are some parallels in this respect with the amazing lengths that De Niro went to for his Oscar-winning role as Jake la Motta in RAGING BULL (1981), the key difference being that De Niro was purely acting while Rourke could be re-living his own life. This is a film that centres around Rourke's character but his opposite number Marisa Tomei (a stripper called Cassidy) plays just as significant a role; like him she gets paid for putting her own flesh on display for a baying audience and her prescence here ensures that this is a film for adults of both genders - it would be a mistake to think of this as 'a man's kind of film'. So these two apparently very different people have something very much in common: they are exploited. This is an exploitation film with a difference, in that it's the characters being manipulated rather than the audience, as is normally the case with films of such a label. br / br /A difference worth mentioning is that while Cassidy fully understands what she does for a living and has a very different personality off-stage, Randy is who he is at all times, this made all the more poignant for the fact that Mickey Rourke himself has lived the life of a down-and-out fighter in real life and in theory hardly needs to act at all. br / br /While Rourke will always be the talking point, this film is made as very good as it is by a combination of other key factors - Marisa Tomei, the script, and the direction of Darren Aronofsky. Don't be surprised though if Rourke gets the call-up at the Academy Awards in a few weeks' time. As Ric Flair would say..."Wooooo!" February 4, 2009 Mr. W. Coles (Beyond the Thunderdome) 10 out of 14 found this review helpful Saw `The Wrestler' in the pics off the back of a load of five star reviews I'd heard on the radio and seen on the box, and although it's a good movie I really struggled to be as emphatic about it as most `real' critics were. br / br /It's a low budget indie movie with Mickey Rourke apparently not even getting paid for his role, which may well have not been such a bad thing after scooping an Oscar nod, but there's something that doesn't quite feel indie about it. It seems like maybe the producers just wanted to save money on it rather than being restricted by funds. Either way it has that unglossy finish to it that gives this film the edge over what could have potentially been a Hollywood cheese fest. br / br /Mickey plays a down-on-his-luck Rocky-esqe wrester named Randy `The Ram' Robinson who had B-star success back in the olden days. He now spreads his time between his motor home, a strip joint, a deli counter and trying to recreate his former glory in the squared circle to pay the bills, but mainly for the rush. It aint pretty, but it's intense. br / br /So flip flopping in my opinion somewhat, if you watch this on the back of a glowing review then I don't recon you'll enjoy it as much as if you go into it with no knowledge of what has been said about it...so what I'm getting at is you should stop reading this now if you recon you're affected by `bigging up'. br / br /No but in all seriousness, this is a flick that covers a lot more than just men in tights, to be honest, that part of it really is the small slice of this cake. The rest of the story is where it's at, the acting is great, really comes across as if these people are the characters they play which doesn't always happen in movies. I mean lets face it though, Mickey Rourke was a warrior of the squared circle in his early days (Albeit boxing) and he's obviously used the passion from the situation that these people would face to keep this movie ticking over in the quiet times. And you really feel for him in his family, job and relationship plights through this. I can only assume Marisa Tomei was a stripper back in the early days after her portrayal of one here, it's crazy believable. br / br /Unfortunately, for those people who, like me, went in hoping to see a visual tirade of spandex clad characters (ala WWF) of my youth, rolling around with eachother with the occasional elbow drop and suplex bringing back memories of Jake the Snake taking on Ravishing Rick Rude in a cage match, this isn't it. Go and get the Royal Rumble DVD in the bargain section instead and float down memory lane of the days when you used to play fight with your mates and argue over whose finishing move was better...my `Boston Crab' was by the way... br / Showing reviews 1-5 of 53 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...11 Next »

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