Ready to Rumble
When I was growing up, I liked watching wrestling, and was a big Hulk Hogan fan. I have not seen much since then but after watching the first Wrestlemania from 1985 with a friend of mine recently, my interest was renewed and the film Ready to Rumble was recommended. Filmed in Los Angeles, the movie is about 2 friends who are huge wrestling fans (David Arquette and Scott Caan) that try to help their favorite wrestler (Oliver Platt) after he is kicked out of the sport. Arquette and Caan are well cast as the pair of slackers (aka Bill & Ted) who take the sport very seriously and do not always make the right life decisions. In wrestling, the results of matches are planned and participants are not harmed (what some refer to as wrestling being “fake”), but the violence in the film was portrayed and handled as being real. This made the wrestling in the movie more interesting and provided for some acrobatic and visual action scenes, fake or not, wrestlers are athletes. Most impressive was how many cameos of actual wrestlers there are, (they all play themselves), and how they implanted a few actors into the pre-existing cast of wrestlers, (such as Jimmy King played by Oliver Platt). There are a couple fun imagined scenes, Rose McGowan is eye catching yet misused, and the soundtrack dates the film. Director Brian Robbins also made Varsity Blues and Hardball, and writer Steven Brill also wrote/directed Little Nicky and Walk of Shame. Watch if you are a fan of wrestling!
Ready to Rumble
2000, PG, 1h 47m