Grade: A
Verdict: Come smell what the Rock and his pals are cookin'.
Details: A wrestling documentary directed by Barry W. Blaustein. Rated R for profanity and violent content. 1 hour, 42 minutes.
Rate it: Write your own review
Review: Vince McMahon, ubergod of cable's much-watched World Wrestling Federation, doesn't like the new wrestling documentary "Beyond the Mat." Never mind that he agreed to be in it. That he allowed cameras behind the scenes of his megabucks operation to film it. That he let several of his popular slabs of prime beef — including superstar wrestlers Mick Foley (aka Mankind, Cactus Jack and Dude Love) and the Rock — be in it.
No, McMahon has withdrawn his support of the film because, he says, it isn't entertaining.
Oh, but it is. It's also revealing, sickening and at times enthralling. It grabs professional wrestling by the throat and rarely lets go, pile-driving that trumped-up, we're-all-suckers brand of ringside soaptainment and brutality. It's both a homage and a wallop to wrestling, delivered with the same pointed precision as the Rock putting his dreaded People's Elbow move on a sprawled-out opponent.
Director Barry W. Blaustein, an admitted wrestling fan and former head writer and supervising producer of "Saturday Night Live," spent two years filming "Beyond the Mat," tracking former and current wrestling stars, peeking beyond the formidable walls of the WWF, following beefy wrestler wannabes and taking a deep look at the upstart organization Extreme Championship Wrestling.
Within the WWF, Blaustein captures the defining moment of the creation of Puke, a wrestler who can vomit at will. He follows Terry Funk, an aging star with as many knee problems as championship matches. And he ventures into ECW "world headquarters," which turns out to be a Northeastern suburban home where a wrestling announcer shouts at least one must-see-us promo as an elderly woman just off camera does the organization's daily ironing.
At its best, "Mat" explores the post-superstar life of wrestler Jake "The Snake" Roberts. He's the guy who hauled a boa constrictor into the ring for televised bouts and nearly four years ago lost the Royal Rumble to Stone Cold Steve Austin. Now older, fatter and less agile, Roberts works the rural wrestling circuit, lives out of cheap hotels, talks about drug use and exhibits his bizarre, psychologically unhealthy relationships with his father and daughter.
Almost as strange are the goings-on with Foley, who in the past year has catapulted to the top of the WWF and written the best-selling autobiography "Have a Nice Day!"
"Beyond the Mat" shows Foley's wife and his two frightened young children ringside, witnessing one of his patented punishing matches. The kids are agog as Foley exits the ring, his face covered in blood, a gash in his head as big as California.
Not to worry, he says. "Daddy's got a boo-boo."
— Bob Longino, Cox News Service
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Beyond the Mat
Services »
