BEYOND THE MAT (1999) / ***
Directed by Barry W Blaustein. Screenplay by Blaustein. Starring Terry Funk, Mick Foley, Jake Roberts. Running time: 101 minutes. Rated AA by the MFCB. Reviewed on July 4th, 2000.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
Pro wrestling, for me, has always been kind of like a traffic accident -- you don't really want to watch, but you just can't look away. I was a big fan of the World Wrestling Federation back in the mid-1980s. These were the days when Hulk Hogan was king of the ring, Andre the Giant was a feared presence lurking in the background, and one of the WWF's biggest heels (that's wrestling parlance for "villain") was -- wait for it -- an Elvis impersonator.
I eventually grew out of wrestling, and for a decade I didn't really pay it much attention. But the WWF (and its lesser-known competitors, the WCW and ECW) have been increasingly hard to ignore in recent years. The action is riskier, the characters sleazier, and the sexual innuendo almost palpable. Wrestlers parade across the screen in the company of enormously-endowed women, make profane gestures at the audience, shove soiled underwear in their opponents' faces, and generally behave like raving savages.
I consider myself a fairly discriminating viewer. I detest programmes that insult my intelligence and flaunt gratuitous violence and sex. So why do I find myself anticipating word of the latest WWF shenanigans? Why do I sit in front of the tube and watch people pummel each other with any object at hand? Witness choreographed posturing so exaggeratedly scripted as to utterly defy suspension of disbelief? Good questions.
Barry Blaustein, the director of the new wrestling documentary "Beyond The Mat" -- the first documentary shown in St John's theatres in my memory, and quite possibly ever -- seems to be wondering these things too, although he never confronts the answer directly. Instead, Blaustein's film is more of a travelogue, taking us from a sort of "minor league" wrestlers' training school, to the WWF itself, to the careers of wrestlers past their prime. It gives the documentary a somewhat lightweight feel, but the subject matter is bleak enough that this might not be such a bad thing.
Blaustein focuses mainly on three wrestlers. There's Terry Funk, a fifty year-old grizzled veteran of the ring. We follow Funk as he visits his doctor, and witness the x-rays that so tellingly demonstrate the effects of his career on his health. His knees are devastated, and the doctor sounds almost incredulous when he wonders that Funk isn't already in extreme pain.
Then there's Jake "The Snake" Roberts, who was one of wrestling's big guns when I was young. Roberts' career has taken a turn for the worse, as an addiction to crack cocaine has caught up with him. Now he earns his keep wrestling no-name jobbers in small towns, trying to support his habit. The change between Roberts in and out of the ring is striking. In front of the audience, he's almost the wrestler of old, working the crowd like a master. Out of the limelight, he's a haunted, broken man. We learn of his tragic past, including abandoning university for wrestling to earn the love of his ex-wrestler father.
Most telling of all is Roberts' hesitant, detached reunion with his estranged daughter. His only defense against her charges that he was never there when she was young? That he had to wrestle, two dozen times or more a month. If he had taken three months off to be with his family, WWF President Vince McMahon would have had him fired. There are many careers which take people away from their families for extended periods of time. How many virtually hold them hostage in doing so?
But "Beyond The Mat" doesn't just dwell on wrestling's dark side. The third featured wrestler, Mick Foley, clearly loves the game as much as anyone could. We see him battering his body mercilessly, punishing himself more than most of us could bear -- and survive it not just intact, but grinning. At the time "Beyond The Mat" was taped, Foley was one of the biggest draws in the WWF (he has since retired due to mounting injuries). His charisma and enthusiasm leap off the screen.
But even this is tempered by scenes involving Foley's young son and daughter. Before a big match, Foley reminds them that it's all just an act, and the other wrestler -- the Rock (Dwayne Johnson) -- doesn't really hate him. But when the Rock beats Foley with a steel chair over and over and over again, his children still cry, and his even his wife looks on in abject terror. When Blaustein shows Foley this footage, the wrestler is uncharacteristically subdued. That he regrets what he puts his family through is undeniable. But, as he himself says, if he didn't wrestle what would he do?
"Beyond The Mat" is not a perfect film. Blaustein lingers too long on some subjects. There is an overlong depiction of Funk's farewell bout, for example, made all the more pointless by the revelation that he returned to wrestling just months later. Some topics are glossed over or ignored altogether -- for instance, the topic of women in wrestling merits just a few soundbites from the wrestler known as Chyna (Joanie Laurer), and is rather glibly assessed. Blaustein also neglects such popular controversies as the death of Owen Hart, the betrayal of Hart's brother Bret by McMahon, and the allegations of sexual impropriety by ex-wrestler Sable (Rena Mero).
But maybe what this points to is that there is more going on outside the frame of the weekly wrestling programmes than can be contained in one documentary. Certainly, Blaustein has more than enough material for "Beyond The Mat II".
I noticed that the promotional poster for "Beyond The Mat" loudly declares this to be "the movie Vince McMahon doesn't want you to see!" That's because McMahon has forbidden the airing of the movie's trailer during WWF broadcasts. But is this a genuine move to counter what I guess McMahon sees as negative publicity, or just a ploy for media attention? Where wrestling is concerned, who can say?
Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan. Archived at The Popcorn Gallery, http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies/BeyondTheMat.html
_______________________________________________________________________ / Shannon Patrick Sullivan | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us \ | shannon@mun.ca | are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde | \___________________________|__________________________________________/ | Popcorn Gallery Movie Reviews www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html | | Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel) /drwho.html |
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