First I have to admit I am prejudiced by it mainly being filmed in and around my hometown of Rahway, NJ. They used my American Legion Post as well. My son when deployed in Bahrain almost jumped off the ouch yelling, "That's my Dad's post!" But let's get on point. I am a sucker for convincing performances. I will watch a film over and over and over again, almost mesmerized with conincing performances which Rourke and Tomei displayed. Everyone else, except for thedaighte I could identify with and I could also picture individuals I know on these roles. Great job! Very nice work.

A prime example of an actor completely disappearing into a role and becoming a character that you forget is fictional and becomes a whole new person that could easily exist in reality. A very powerful and emotional story. Don't hesitate if you think you need to like professional wrestling to enjoy this thoroughly engrossing movie. This is a performance by Mickey Rourke that needs to be seen over and over. A master class in acting. Makes for a great double feature with "Black Swan".

I'm not a fan of wrestling (let alone sports) but I enjoy a good sports movie and The Wrestler is up there with some of my favourite sports movies ever. It tells the simple yet touching story of an aging professional wrestler who was big in the 80s but now past his prime. Then after suffering a heart attack, he reluctantly retires from wrestling and tries to adjust to normality by working in a deli counter, forming a relationship with a stripper and even trying to bond with his estranged daughter. In my opinion, The Wrestler is the best sports movie since the first Rocky movie. It even got praised from other professional wrestlers as well. And I'm glad that Mickey Rourke won both a B.A.F.T.A. Film Award and a Golden Globe for his portrayal as Randy "The Ram" but I'm surprised he didn't get an Oscar because this was the performance of his career. And I'm also surprised The Wrestler was only nominated for two Oscars. If you ask me, it should've been given more nominations like Best Director, Best Original Song or even Best Picture because it's one of the best movies of 2008.

Being an old-school fan of professional wrestling (I grew up in the WWF's late 1980s-early 90s heyday), I was expecting to thoroughly enjoy this much-hyped film. Instead, I found it to fall quite flat for me for two specific reasons:First, I think I came into viewing "The Wrestler" with too much prior experience/knowledge of professional wrestling. While the film depicts such unsettling scenes as the locker room drug/steroid deals, the brutal "death matches", and the lonely life that a pro wrestler leads, those were things I already knew, thus I wasn't shocked to see them on screen. Perhaps moviegoers who know nothing about the sinister side of pro wrestling would find those things more horrifying (and thus sympathize with Mickey Rourke's "Randy the Ram" character) than I did.Secondly, I just wasn't sucked into what was supposed to provide the drama of the film. Randy's relationship with his stripper girlfriend didn't quite lend itself to incredible drama, because it wasn't fleshed-out enough, while his relationship with his estranged daughter flourished a bit too quickly to make the climax of the film as touching as it could have been.So, although Rourke does turn in an inspired performance, I felt that the film was a bit too rushed in its dramatic efforts and didn't cover enough new territory (at least for me) to hold my interest. However, if you know very little about the backstage goings-on in professional wrestling, then this movie may shock you enough to truly care about Randy the Ram.