Mat Classic - The Wrestler
It started out as a low-key Nic Cage vehicle. It wound up snaring Oscar nominations and terrific reviews. But was Darren Aronofsky's movie more concerned with satisfying film buffs or fight fans...
When it was first announced, The Wrestler seemed a pretty depressing affair. The idea of Nicolas Cage playing a burned-out grappler seemed ridiculous to anyone who’d seen the Oscar-winner looking tanned and taught in Ghost Rider. Yes, he’s made some very good films in his time. But the Leaving Las Vegas star’s noughties output suggested that The Wrestler would be less a study of a man trying to maintain his dignity in an undignified world than a disappointing action movies along the lines of Cage misfires like Bangkok Dangerous and the aforementioned Marvel abortion.
The presence of Darren Aronofsky in the director’s chair didn’t inspire much confidence either, what with the creator of the brain-frying Pi and the harrowing Requiem For A Dream having blown so much kudos on the ambitious but unsatisfying The Fountain. Yes, while it was nice to see cinema showing interest
in the fight game again, The Wrestler looked like it was going to be yet another embarrassment to file alongside No Holds Barred or Ready To Rumble.
But then Nic Cage quit the picture, Aronofsky hired his actor-of-choice Mickey Rouke and everything changed, changed utterly. Casting Rourke as Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson made perfect sense, what with the actor having endured remarkable highs and crippling lows over the course of his career. Factor the 9 1/2 Weeks star’s boxing heritage and ravaged physique into the bargain and Rourke couldn’t have been more perfect for the part than if he’d actually been a wrestling star from the 1980s who’d fallen on hard times.
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