BEFORE: I suspect that when I designed this chain, I figured that new films would be inserted between the ones already on the list, and therefore this part would have ended up much later in the year - because the next film on my list is "8 Crazy Nights", with Jon Lovitz carrying over from "The Great White Hype", and providing a link to this one. But it doesn't feel right to watch a Hanukkah-based film when it's 90 degrees outside, so I'm going to invoke executive privilege and move that film to December, or whenever Hanukkah starts this year. (Ah, December 6. See ya then.)
The link still works, Jon Lovitz was in "8 Crazy Nights" with Ellen Albertini Dow, who appears here as a wrestling fan. And yes, I know this is the boxing chain, but I'm working in a wrestling film. Same basic thing, right? Plus, this film's title comes from the catchphrase of ring announcer Michael Buffer, who's my secret linking weapon this week. I mean, come on, you can't really have a film based on his famous trademark saying without him being in it, can you?
THE PLOT: Two slacker wrestling fans are devastated by the ousting of their favorite character by an unscrupulous promoter.
AFTER: This is another case where a film felt sort of half-written, because the story fires in many diffferent directions, the characters are wildly inconsistent, and they keep moving the goalposts. The goal is to meet the famous wrestler - no, wait, the goal is to rekindle his spirit. Wait, the goal is to get him to the next match and get him a shot at the title. OK, you guys go on ahead without me, I'm too tired.
The debate on wrestling was always - is it real or fake? Neither, it's staged. Just like a play or a film, the heroes and villains trade lines and work together to put on the best show, with the most dramatic outcomes. People don't walk out of a play or a film and debate whether what they just saw was "real", because they know it wasn't, but part of them wants to believe the illusion that it is. Perhaps a better analogy is the circus - where people are doing stunts to entertain the audience - nobody questions whether that woman is really on the trapeze, or that lion tamer is really in a cage with dangerous animals. Professional people are doing something they've trained to do, to give the illusion of danger so the audience can have a thrill.
But the film can't even decide, there are a few winks to the home audience, where cameramen are confused that people are deviating from the "script", but then the promoter's plan to discredit goes out the window just because one remote segment goes wrong? I doubt it. What's planned carefully is the overall storyline, where the most popular (or most hated) wrestlers get a shot at the title belts. And how many times has a wrestling champion been "defeated" in a match, only to have the president of the league declare that it wasn't a title match, so the belt doesn't change hands? You have to call that sort of thing in advance.
Look, if a promoter wanted to fire a difficult wrestler, he wouldn't have him beaten so badly in a match, he just wouldn't call him to show up the following week. And if wrestling is staged, which it is, then there's no point in traveling from town to town to get someone back in the game, because unless management approves it, he's not getting back in. "What's that, you snuck into a match, ambushed the champ and took him down? Ya got moxie, kid - I know I fired you last week, but clearly you deserve a shot at the title!" Nope, it just doesn't work that way.
This film was released in 2000, the early days of the internet. You can tell because our heroes need to find a teen who knows how to use a computer, just to track down someone's address. Did they forget how to use a phone book? And naturally the kid is a hacker, because he can somehow find anyone, anywhere. But how come later in the film they dropped this angle and Scott Caan's character suddenly became a genius about where to find things? I guess being in contact with a computer nerd made hims smarter somehow.
NITPICK POINT: I have this same beef with "CSI: Cyber", a show starring a different Arquette. Traveling across the country is much, much too easy here. The investigative team on "CSI: Cyber" is based outside of Washington DC, but their jurisdiction is federal. So when someone is killed or hacked in Chicago or Florida, they're somehow there in an instant, before the body is even cold - how? Even if they have a private jet, there's still the issue of travel time. Our wrestling fans here have an RV and travel from city to city for different showings of "Monday Nitro", but the travel time is omitted, mostly for the sake of narrative expediency. But later in the film they drive from NYC to Wyoming like it's nothing, and I'm betting that's like 5 days of non-stop driving, even with three people behind the wheel. There's a limited amount of time to train Jimmy King, why waste a week of it on driving? Plus, who's paying for gas and meals, if these guys have no money and no jobs?
Also starring David Arquette (last seen in "Never Been Kissed"), Scott Caan (last seen in "Novocaine"), Oliver Platt (last seen in "Postcards From the Edge"), Rose McGowan, Joe Pantoliano (last seen in "Congo"), Martin Landau (last seen in "Rounders"), "Diamond" Dallas Page, Bill Goldberg, Steve "Sting" Borden, Richard Lineback, Chris Owen, Caroline Rhea, Ahmet Zappa, with cameos from Kathleen Freeman (last seen in "The Best of Times"), Lewis Arquette, Randy Savage, Booker T, Perry Saturn, Rey Mysterio, Michael Buffer and Gene Okerlund.
RATING: 3 out of 10 port-a-potties
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