THE WRESTLER
CAROLINE: “The Wrestler” marks the comeback of one scary-faced Mickey Rourke. As we all know by now, he’s received many accolades for this role, and is even Oscar nominated.
RYAN: Although he does a fine job in this movie, I don’t think it’s an Oscar worthy performance. I think an Oscar winning performance is when you can’t imagine any other actor doing the role, and I could have easily seen Alec Baldwin or Nicolas Cage in this.
CAROLINE: Alec is way too fat. This movie kind of shocked me from the very beginning. I had no idea it was shot the way it was; almost in a shaky verité style. It kind of feels like a documentary about an aging wrestler. I thought it was a much bigger budget movie than it was because of all the praise it was getting.
RYAN: It definitely feels more like an indie film. Darren Aronofsky has this filming technique that really irritates me where he follows his actors from behind with the camera. He does it for about 30% of this movie, and you can’t see the actors’ faces and it bugs me to no end.
CAROLINE: This movie was kind of violent. The first half hour is almost all W.W.E. style wrestling, which you’ll either love or hate. I don’t give a crap about the W.W.E. so I wasn’t that into it.
RYAN: I was pretty engaged actually, and interested to see what was going to happen. I really liked the story line between Mickey Rourke and his daughter, Evan Rachel Wood. But his face! The plastic surgery is so bad, and I know people talk about this all the time, but I’m almost like, “How can this be an Oscar nominated performance when I can’t even read his face?”
CAROLINE: [laughs’ Ouch.
RYAN: I’m serious! His face barely moves. I think the whole thing is plastic.
CAROLINE: It’s definitely scary. Marisa Tomei plays a stripper/Mickey’s love interest and she’s also nominated for an Oscar. She was fine, but the whole stripper thing is a little tired, and I don’t necessarily think she was among the best supporting actresses of the year.
RYAN: She’s a great actress though, and I love her in almost everything she does. Clearly, Hollywood loves her because she’s already won one Oscar, and has now been nominated for two others. I don’t think this is a spectacular role for her though.
CAROLINE: I know she won for “My Cousin Vinny” but what was the other nomination?
RYAN: Best Supporting Actress for “In the Bedroom.”
CAROLINE: Oh, right. Evidently she can only get nominated for supporting roles. Anyway, it’s not like “The Wrestler” is a bad movie; I was just expecting more. I thought because of the way people were raving about it, it was going to be a bigger and better movie. LBH, it’s not a great film. Everyone’s just freaking out about Mickey Rourke’s comeback.
RYAN: I didn’t like the ending.
CAROLINE: Really? I thought it was kind of cool. And I loved the dramatic scene in the deli.
— BOTTOM LINE —
CAROLINE: I didn’t love this movie, though I definitely think Mickey Rourke fans should see it. It’s definitely one of the biggest buzz movies of 2008, and while it’s not bad, I was definitely expecting more because of all the hype.
RYAN: I only saw this movie because of the buzz surrounding Mickey. He’s a fine actor, and if he’s got his act together and is going to start making movies again, that’s great… but it’s kind of like, “Big deal.” I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t made movies in the last few years. He was in “Sin City,” for example. I’m not sure why this is being called such a breakthrough performance. I’m a little underwhelmed.
CAROLINE: I guess it’s because he hasn’t had a leading role in ages, and he used to be such a prolific actor. This role also has parallels to his real life since he’s playing a fading former wrestling star who’s trying to make a comeback.
— RATING —
