The Wrestler
The movie centers on Randy 'The Ram', an aging professional wrestler, decades past his prime, who now barely gets by working small wrestling shows in VFW halls and as a part-time grocery store employee. Randy lives to be a hero once again in the only place he considers home, inside the ring.
4 April 1961, Newark, New Jersey, USA
12 November 1980, Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, USA
13 July 1973, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA
15 November 1984, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
17 March 1977, Williams Air Force Base, Arizona, USA
19 January 1972, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
2 September 1980, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
4 December 1964, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
27 December 1984, New Rochelle, New York, USA
1970, Brooklyn, New York, USA
12 April 1981, Vietnam
1975, USA
8 January 1977, Lodi, New Jersey, USA
October 07, 2015
The most interesting aspect of the film is its depiction of the irreconcilable difference between someone's public and private personae.
January 16, 2009
Predictable as it is, this sad, strong beast of a film keeps us pinned to the mat with the strength of its compassion and the overpowering force of its central performance.
January 09, 2009
The Wrestler has the intimacy of a fly-on-the-wall documentary. No stunt men were harmed -- or used -- in the fight sequences. But the drama makes for vibrant art.
October 21, 2014
As the film points out, wrestling may be fixed, but it certainly ain't fake. This may be a film, but it certainly ain't fake either.
March 21, 2017
Great performances, great story.
January 16, 2009
It's a wonderful, career-reviving performance, and you can't imagine the movie without him. Welcome back, Mickey.
January 16, 2009
Aronofsky directs with unfussy candour, alternating between the intensity of the wrestling and the drabness of Randy's 'real' life.
May 17, 2016
A quarter-century (and, one senses, a lot longer in Rourke Years) since he pulled the popcorn-bag trick on Carol Heathrow and then talked his way back into her good graces, we'll still forgive Mickey Rourke anything.
June 22, 2013
The movie is populated with real wrestlers, and it makes sure to nail all the little details.
January 09, 2009
The movie presses too hard and too often, but the performances are strong enough to withstand the melodramatic impulses, and the themes of isolation and self-destructiveness are too sharply realized to be trivialized.
February 20, 2014
Darren Aronofsky's filmmaking in The Wrestler is the most subtle and nuanced he's ever done.
January 14, 2009
The chance to play that poignant confusion is the real prize that Rourke and Tomei earn in The Wrestler.
