Not only is this a dumbarse film about wrestling, I think it’s actually set itself a world record. Think of all the films you’ve ever seen… now, how many of those featured some guy getting kicked in the nuts? Three, maybe four? The entire back catalogue of Julie Andrews, sure, but not every ten minutes.
That could be the glorious claim to fame of this film; a hemmed-genre movie involving every conceivable joke (and cliché) about world championship wrestling. Well, not all. I think a few opportunities went begging. However, the film tells the woe-begotten tale of hetero life partners Gordie and Sean. They run a small business pumping sewerage from Port-a-Potties into their truck and escorting it away (with the winning motto You dump it, we pump it!).
| "Oh my God… there are the farting nuns!" |
They love wrestling. Their hero is Jimmy King, the undisputed and undefeated world champion. However, he has been betrayed and evicted by his manager who has tired of his antics. Having witnessed this horrifying betrayal firsthand the boys are headed home when disaster strikes, giving them the impetus to go and save Jimmy’s career. So begins an admittedly funny trip through the annals of the wrestling underworld as they try to get Jimmy trained up and ready to regain his title.
I can’t say I expected much from this one and was both surprised and appalled to catch myself laughing at various points. Try as I might I can’t exactly give this a bad review. Sure it’s a dumb film with dumb gags (nuns doing Van Halen?), but some primal essence within me found the base level jokes and toilet humour curiously amusing. I admit it, I laugh at bum jokes. There, I said it.
This is by no means a film for everyone, but is alongside other such stalwarts of the hemmed-genre like Detroit Rock City and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure in which there’s a running theme and everything else works around that.
There’s a surprising ensemble cast here including shitloads of wrestlers, plus folks like Martin Landau and Joe Pantoliano. Rose McGowan shows up for a bit and Oliver Platt takes time out of his busy schedule to play Jimmy King. And, as if that weren’t enough, that eternal champion of wrestling (commentating) Mean Gene Okerland finds time to get on screen and even delivers a gag or two (not that they're very funny).
Budget priced for all the teenage wrestling fans out there, this was made in 2000 and isn’t a bad investment if you’re looking for something limited to practically one running gag with a few scantily-clad Nitro Girls™ thrown in.
Actually not a bad transfer here for a budget release with some pretty clear vision presented in the 1.85:1 cinema aspect ratio (with 16:9 enhancement). I couldn’t detect any artefacts save for a few negligible ones and the shadow detail is actually okay. Given we get a few darkened auditorium scenes, this is good atop the fact there’s no grain at all. At the rarest of times we get a little macro-blocking in the deep blacks, but this is again fairly negligible. Blacks are true and the colour palette is even and well saturated on the whole.
Delivered us in the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround format, we get a nice bit of surround usage in crowd noises and city sounds. The subwoofer supports the pretty rockin’ white-trash soundtrack of songs by artists like Kid Rock, Ol’ Dirty Bastard and P.O.D. The score is used for humour (of course) and this has been scored by George S. Clinton to support the thin premise. Dialogue is screamed a lot of the time and this sounds okay, with levels capturing the hillbillyism very nicely. This is exactly what you would imagine the sound to a wrestling film would be like and doesn’t let it down (if such a thing could be said).
Well, it was a matter of time until someone did it and here it is. A film about wrestling fans and their love of the game. I’m not a wrestling fan and I didn’t want to like this, but I found myself laughing at some of the truly sillier moments and slapstick (it’s hard to not laugh at a truckload of shit tipping over onto some people).
So it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, but I would also definitely say this isn’t for everyone. For anyone who enjoys a good bum joke (or 53 in a row) this is worth checking out with your grubby friends one afternoon when your parents are at a parent/teacher meeting. For anyone else, or for those easily offended, it would be better to steer clear.
