Wrestling comedy `Ready to Rumble' a waste of film
By JEFFREY Q. IRISH
Scene Movie Critic
"One time, my 32 year-old cousin Walter got a cat stuck in his butt. True story. It was embarrassing for my relatives and all, but the next week he did it again! A week later I run into him at the mall and he's buying another cat. So I says to him, `Walter, what are you doing buying another cat? You're just going to get it stuck in your butt again.' And he says to me, `Brodie, How the heck else am I gonna get the gerbil out?' My cousin was a weird guy — he also liked wrestling."
This quote, from Kevin Smith's "Mallrats," has little relevance to the following review of "Ready to Rumble," but it gets the point across that anyone who is over the age of 10 and likes wrestling has the I.Q. of a napkin. It is the most immature and stupid phenomenon that has ever become a multi-billion dollar business. It must be supported by trash, but if that is true, then, in a round about way, every ND-SMC student who has ever attended "Boat Club" supports wrestling.
Wrestling aside, the movie may be the worst to be released nationwide since "Good Burger."
Two words sum up the entire one hour and 45 minutes of this film — it sucks.
There was so much potential here for a screwball comedy. It could have made fun of wrestling and how the fans are all meatheads and hicks. But it didn't.
The storyline follows two 20-year-old losers (Scott Caan and David Arquette) as they go through life in the profession of emptying port-o-potties. Then one day, their hero, professional wrestler Jimmy King (Oliver Platt), loses for the first time and is fired for being an "ungrateful drunk who needs to go back to the trailer to learn his lesson." Caan and Arquette's characters make up their minds to help Jimmy King get his title back.
King is a drunk, obese and lazy man who immediately left his wife and kids without a penny after he became famous. You can smell what the plot cooks up from here.
As far as the acting goes, Caan doesn't deliver on the comedic talent he showed as the wild wide receiver of "Varsity Blues." But there is still a bright future ahead of him. Arquette, on the other hand, who is more famous for his family than acting, should dial 1-800-I-NEED-ACTING-LESSONS.
Director Brian Robbins steals shots from "Reservoir Dogs" and "A Few Good Men" and scores from "American Beauty" and "Saving Private Ryan," yet, somehow, still makes a worthless movie.
Last year's hit comedy "A Night at the Roxbury" is a perfect example of how funny it can be to mock meatheads.
"Ready to Rumble" fails in that it doesn't seem to know whether it is making fun of wrestling or promoting it.
one out of five shamrocks
All Scene Stories for Thursday, April 13, 2000
