Cast: David Arquette, Oliver Platt, Scott Caan, Bill Goldberg, Rose McGowan, Page Falkinburg, Martin Landau, Joe Pantoliano
Director: Brian Robbins
Producers: Robert F. Newmyer, Jeffrey Silver
Screenplay: Steven Brill
Cinematography: J. Clark Mathis
Music: George S. Clinton
U.S. Distributor: Warner Brothers
I have never been an admirer of movies that showcase dumb, bathroom humor. On rare occasions, a film like There's Something About Mary manages to be so outrageous that it's almost impossible not to laugh, but those kinds of entries are few and far between. Ready to Rumble, the latest effort from sports movie director Brian Robbins (Varsity Blues), is a case in point. The production uses the adage that if gross is funny, then grosser must be funnier. In applying this approach, it does things that make Ace Ventura look tasteful. Ready to Rumble is a movie where no joke about raw sewage goes unplumbed.
The primary target group of the film is wrestling (or should that be "rasslin'"?) fans, a.k.a. teenage boys (or other people with the curious mix of couch potato tendencies and too much testosterone). In a strange way, it's understandable why a WWF die-hard might appreciate Ready to Rumble, because the similarities between the movie and a live event are obvious: both are badly scripted, horribly acted, and painfully repetitious. And, although the film is being marketed as a "satire" (by people who don't understand that there's no payoff in lampooning something that has already crossed the line into self-parody), it actually functions as a one-hundred minute commercial for wrestling.
Like far too many bottom-of-the-barrel comedies, this one eventually decides to take a left turn into treacly melodrama, which is about the worst move it could possibly make. In the beginning, Ready to Rumble is about two big losers, Gordie (David Arquette) and Sean (Scott Caan), whose entire lives are sewage (they clean out port-a-potties and septic tanks for a living) and wrestling. On the night when the WCW brings its big traveling road show to their Wyoming town, they're in attendance to watch their hero, Jimmy King (Oliver Platt), continue his undefeated streak against Diamond Dallas Page (Page Falkinburg). On this night, however, unscrupulous promoter Titus Sinclair (Joe Pantoliano) has decided that it's time for Jimmy to be unseated. After The King loses the match, the film turns into a buddy movie, with Gordie and Sean bonding with Jimmy and pushing him to regain his self-respect and his title. On some level, director Robbins actually seems to think we're going to care about these characters and their situation, when, in fact, the only thing the average viewer is likely to be interested in is when the end credits are going to roll.
Could there possibly be worst casting than Oliver Platt as a wrestling kingpin? Platt is a solid actor, but his physique doesn't exactly match the profile of a wrestler. From that perspective, the Pillsbury Dough Boy might be a better choice. It boggles the mind to wonder why the producers didn't get a real wrestler like Bill Goldberg (who has a small part playing himself) to portray Jimmy King. Maybe they went after Platt because they felt he could lend some dramatic heft to the role and make all of the dumb dialogue sound halfway believable. The strategy doesn't work. With someone like Goldberg, Ready to Rumble might have strayed into the realm of camp. With Platt, it's just plain bad.
Platt is sandwiched between David Arquette, whose manic performance makes one wonder how many cups of coffee he had between takes, and Scott Caan, who could use a little caffeine to wake him up. Curvaceous Rose McGowan is on hand for no reason whatsoever except to provide a pair of breasts. However, since the movie is rated PG-13, they remain carefully covered up - the film's lone nudity is a quick shot of Caan's buttocks. (MPAA hypocrisy note of the day: it's okay to have countless incidents of bone-crunching body slams and soprano-generating kicks to the groin for a PG-13, but there can't be any bare breasts because that would mean an R.) Martin Landau has a small role slumming as an "old school" wrestling trainer whose chief purpose is to give a badly-matched stunt double some screen time.
There is a place in the movie-making world for works of no possible redeeming social value that are founded exclusively on sophomoric humor. There's only one caveat to that statement: the comedy has to be funny, and it isn't in Ready to Rumble. Unless you're prepared to double over with laughter at the sight of liquefied feces dripping out of a leaky valve or the sound of an old lady enthusing about how one wrestler should "bitch slap" another one, this movie is not going to be a lot of fun. The only rumble associated with this film should be the stampede to the exit doors.
© 2000 James Berardinelli