HULKACINEMA!: No Holds Barred (1989)

RIP 'EM!

This is one of my favorite movies. Full stop. Not because it is beautiful. Not because the acting is top notch (although Kurt Fuller is incredible). Not because the script is particularly insightful or revelatory. I love this movie because it is objectively terrible. It is so terrible, that it has become good. It's that rare unicorn of a movie. The filmmakers set aside all thoughts of taste and logic and committed to this bonkers world and made something hilarious and fun. No Holds Barred is to professional wrestling what Rocky is to boxing: each film perfectly encapsulates the good and bad of their sport. Rocky is a tale of an underdog who chases his dream down, no matter what, and is rooted in real human emotion. No Holds Barred is the quintessential professional wrestling movie: it features larger-than-life archetypical characters, ham-handed morality tale themes, and a world where men can murder each other on TV for great ratings. No Holds Barred exists in a world where wrestling is real (it was made in '89, which means, for many Americans, wrestling WAS real), and the film's entire world reflects that insane place where professional wrestling resides. No Holds Barred and Rocky are, intentional or no, perfect mirrors of each other. One is a great movie that features a breakthrough performance, an epic soundtrack, a simple story told beautifully, and has left an indelible mark on popular culture. The other is a movie I watched yesterday afternoon.

Summary:

Rip (according to Amazon, his last name is Thomas, but no one in the film uses a last name, and he isn't given one in the credits: that's right, everyone, always, refers to him as "Rip!") is the World Wrestling Entertainment Federation champion. Mr. Brell, head of World Television Network, desperately wants Rip on his network, so he can milk some of that sweet, sweet wrestling money (yes, this is a world where professional wrestling is the most profitable, most watched piece of pop culture in the world). Rip rebuffs his offer, which sets Mr. Brell on a path of vengeance: he establishes an extreme fighting competition, "The Battle of the Tough Guys," and attempts to lure Rip into the ring, so that Brell's surrogate, Zeus, can wreak havoc on him. It's... really fucking insane.

Things I Enjoyed (I've decided not to refer to these as "Pros," because, while most of these made me giggle, they aren't strengths of the film, per se):

The World of Professional Wrestling: The only thing you need to know about this film is that it exists in a world where professional wrestling is real. The entire movie universe plays by those rules. That means that TV executives are literally evil: Brell attempts to murder Rip a few times, and has Rip's love interest, Sam, assaulted and nearly raped. Brell is the kind of mustache-twirling big guy taking advantage of the little guy villain that has always been popular in wrestling. Rip, our hero, is unquestionably a good guy: everyone tells us this, throughout the movie, on multiple occasions. Good guys in wrestling are GOOD guys: they are completely dedicated to honor and virtue. That these kinds of overly-simple character archetypes rarely work outside of children's television was lost on the makers of this film. Zeus manhandles, and probably murders, a few people on live television. Rip totally murders Zeus, by throwing him off a balcony THROUGH THE RING, and then electrocutes Brell to death, to the thunderous applause of the live audience. This is a world where violence solves everything, and there are no consequences. Ever. Because the good guys win. In essence, this is a world where Monday Night Raw is EVERY GODDAMNED DAY OF THE WEEK. And that is hilarious.

Hulk Hogan, Actor: The script very wisely gives Hulk little to say, and it is immediately clear that even that is an uphill battle. He is always at one of two poles: either huffing, and growling like a mad dog, or whispering with all the authority of a man who barely memorized what he had to say minutes before cameras started rolling. And yet... Hulk Hogan is fun to watch. The choices he makes as an actor are, objectively, terrible, but they fit like a glove in the world the movie has set up for him.

Kurt Fucking Fuller: Kurt Fuller is the villainous Mr. Brell, and the production got their freaking money's worth. He seems to know that this world is just a cartoon, and plays Brell to the nines. He says the insult, "Jock-ASS!" at least four times; he tells a female executive, after she offers a bad idea, to "go take a leak!"; oh, and he attempts to murder a professional wrestler multiple times. He is so cartoonishly evil, that I can't help but love this performance. But let's not forget Charles Levin and David Paymer as Brell's hapless accomplices: they, too, commit to the absurdity of the script, and make the most of the scenes they are in. Even if those scenes involve unwittingly peeing on each other in a shady roadside dive bar restroom. Yes. That happens. And so much more.

The Scene Design: Look, the bar in this movie, where they hold the inaugural "Battle of the Tough Guys," is a legit cool looking set. It looks like a labor of love: the ring posts are piled with old tires, the ring ropes are actual ropes, there are neon signs and graffiti everywhere, and there is a cage with a little person in it. In short, it looks like a WCW payperview set. And that is rad.

Short: This movie, top-to-bottom, is 93 minutes long. That includes both the opening and closing credits. This film will not take you very long to finish. Of course, my wife remarked, after the movie ended, "I feel like I've been here for three hours." So, maybe your mileage may vary.

Awful Eighties Rocker Theme Song: As awesome, iconic, engaging, and powerful as "Eye of the Tiger" was, "No Holds Barred," the theme song for this movie, is equally opposite in every way. The song sucks, is boring, mostly consists of the same words sung over and over, and seems to be a parody of eighties rock tunes. Which is to say that I fucking loved it. Survivor, eat your heart out.

Cons:

It's All Actually Really Terrible: Don't let me fool you: this is a terrible movie. It is the FUN kind of terrible movie, but, if you don't actually get any fun out of watching awful cinema, then you will have a bad time with this one.

In Conclusion:

I love this movie. It is the only "good" film that Hulk Hogan ever made, and it isn't even good. It's the kind of "good" that results from some people who have no right making a movie committing an egregious amount of time and effort into making a movie. As a fan of wrestling, I love this movie. As a fan of terrible cinema, I love this movie. $9.99 was, simultaneously, both too much and too little a price to pay to watch this film (and to own, on Amazon Prime Video).

Should You Watch It?

Oh yeah. This is the kind of movie you turn on at a party, and bask in with your friends, and a controlled substance.

Miscellany:

- Requisite Wrestler Cameos: commentator Mean Gene Okerlund, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, Tommy "Tiny" Lister, legendary announcer Howard Finkel, and AWA champion Stan Hansen.

- The film sports an 11% on Rotten Tomatoes.
- Vince McMahon actually wrote Zeus into the WWF, and he feuded, very poorly, with Hogan: they even named a WWF event after the film. Rumor has it that Hogan and Zeus were planned to headline Wrestlemania, but the film's underperformance caused those plans to be scrapped.
- Hogan and McMahon disliked the first version of the script, and spent 72 hours in a hotel rewriting it to their liking.
- Jim Ross, on an episode of Monday Night Raw, jokingly referred to the movie as "No Profits Allowed," because it was a substantial flop.