[CaptainCrunch]

Ok, this is weird. But I decided on my way home from work to pick up the wrestler, a movie that had received all kinds of accolades for the work of the actors and directors. It was described as one of the great movies of the year and I thought it was worthy to start a thread to encourage people that haven't seen this movie to take a chance and watch it.

This movie was so well put together, and brilliant and at the same time grimy and gritty and at times hard to watch.

The Wrestler falls the down fall of Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a formerly great and now washed up wrestler who 20 years before had been the top wrestler in the game putting on shows in Madison Square Gardens and is now stuck doing shows in high school gyms in front of a handfull of people.

Now I had fears that this would be an attempt to expose the wrestling business or attack it even more, especially with the scenes of Robinson being short paid by a promoter, and buying steroids from another wrestler to get ready for a match that meant nothing.

But this isn't really a wrestling movie. Ok, at its heart it is a wrestling movie, but this film could have replaced the wrestling theme with any sport, or any situation where someone gets past their prime but can't move on.

This movie is more about a man that can't really live in reality who has poisoned everything that ever matters to him. Its the story of a man trying to work an ordinary job, get the girl (A very sexy Marisa Tomei as a beaten down older stripper), reconcile with his daughter and leave wrestling behind, a career that at the same time built him up and destroy him.

The pivotal event in this movie is Randy having a heart attack in a grungy high school gym and being told that he can not safely wrestle again even though the end point is a matchup against a old rival from his glory days.

This movie is tragic because Robinson tries so hard to rebuild his life but ultimately makes things worse alienated his daughter and pushing off a potential love interest and throwing his life literally away for one last match in the only world that he feels will accept him.

This movie exposes some things about professional wrestling, and I'm not talking about the glamour and glitz of the WWE or TNA, but it exposes the independant scene populated by either raw rookies or never will bes fighting in front of 100's of people and literally ripping themselves to pieces for the cheers of very few. Its bought into focus when Randy is setting up a match with a pudgy out of shape wrestler who really can't wrestle but is comfortable with accepting hardcore punishment and using a staple gun. The resulting match is incredibly uncomfortable to watch and is a testiment to the expectation of wrestling fans.

The acting in this movie was exceptional, Mickey Rourke puts in a heartbreaking performance as a man who has lost it all and in the end realizes that he's really not accepted and he's not going to be loved by anyone but the fans and the wrestling community, but you can also see a man who's heart has been broken one too many times and he's beyond broken. Tomei is almost unrecognizable as Cassidy a older stripper and a single mom who lives a life that almost mirrors Robinsons in that she has almost become her stripper alter ego and trusts no one outside of the stage. Finally Evan Rachel Woods has a relatively small part and plays the role of a girl that opens herself up to trust one to many times.

The director Darren Afonofsky puts together a smart grim minimalistic movie with little in the way of sound effects and it looks like it was filmed with one long shot and he manages to capture the crushing truth of life, that in order to get anything you have to have faith and put in an effort, something that the main character never realizes.

If I was going to give this movie a rating it would get 4 our of 5 stars with another star added because Tomei channels her inner stripper and looks incredible.

Rent it buy it, but prepare to cringe, cheer and maybe cry a little.