The Wrestler

**** - While it doesn’t have the frenetic pacing and ingenuity of his first two films (“Pi” and “Requiem for a Dream”) or the story depth and artistic quality of his 3rd film (“The Fountain”), Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 “The Wrestler” is probably his most poignant and finely crafted to date. The highlight of this is definitely the superb portrayal of fictional pro wrestler Robin Ramzinski (aka Randy ‘the Ram’ Robinson) by Mickey Rourke. It was an extremely realistic and believable performance and Rourke imbued the character with great warmth, sadness and even humor. If I have to criticize this film, it would have to be about two things. First, it’s about wrestling, and therefore features a lot of wrestling in it. I hate wrestling. So, much like the 2009 film “Crazy Heart” – which dealt with another of my most hated things, country music – I have to knock off some points for having so much of something I despise featured. Secondly, I thought the story kind of petered out in the later stages, and ended abruptly with a number of loose ends. However, those faults aside, I was remarkably entertained by a movie that had loads of pro wrestling in it, which is actually quite a feat on its own.