Average Rating: 6.7/10
Reviews Counted: 66
Fresh: 54 | Rotten: 12
Even if you aren't a fan, Beyond the Mat provides a riveting, perceptive look into the world of professional wrestling by taking a closer look at the people beneath the personas.
Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 18
Fresh: 13 | Rotten: 5
Even if you aren't a fan, Beyond the Mat provides a riveting, perceptive look into the world of professional wrestling by taking a closer look at the people beneath the personas.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 7,821
In a rare foray into documentary filmmaking, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment produced this behind-the-scenes look at professional wrestling, shot on digital video by director (Barry W. Blaustein), screenwriter of several hit Eddie Murphy comedies. An unabashed wrestling fan since childhood, Blaustein nevertheless takes an unflinching look at the dark underbelly of the "sport," as he shadows a trio of wrestlers representing three very different aspects of the profession. Mick
Oct 22, 1999 Wide
Aug 22, 2000
Universal Pictures
All Critics (67) | Top Critics (18) | Fresh (54) | Rotten (12) | DVD (11)
Documentaries are almost always more interesting if the filmmakers fess up about their relationship to the subject, as unabashed pro-wrestling fan Barry Blaustein does in this naively made, compelling homage to the sport.
A gently and genuinely observed film whose subject is a garish, artificial display of mayhem.
Entertaining and twisted.
It has a hypnotic quality.
Sometimes, you find material for a good movie in the most unlikely place.
Beyond the Mat wants to blend thrills and pathos, getting at the many sides of what is, as Mr. Blau stein describes it, a carny act. The problem is that he doesn't articulate any of his own thoughts beyond a few slight asides.
WWF documentary is OK for older teens.
Am engrossing watch, but it's far from the most fascinating and incisive look at its subject.
Blaustein, Foley and Funk layeth the smack well and truly down.
We tour the All-Pro Wrestling School in California and Philadelphia's fearsome Extreme Championships, but it's the studies Blaustein makes of several wrestlers that root the film.
A very good film that both wrestling fans and non-wrestling fans will enjoy.
Barry Blaustein takes a long, hard look at pro wrestling and, while not making me a newborn fan of the sport, he taught me the intensity and sacrifice of those who enter the ring.
A hilarious and heartbreaking documentary.
Surprisingly riveting.
Unfortunately Blaustein isn't an experienced enough film-maker to make much of such material.
...an easygoing, straightforward film without too many surprises
turns out to be less interested in the cartoonish brutality of pro wrestling than it is with the lives of the people who make their living in the ring.
Blaustein and his film have at least put a human face on those monstrous countenances that snarl out from our television sets on Saturday afternoons.
The real meat of the movie comes in the many intimate moments that Blaustein's camera catches.
The film is sometimes riveting -- and sometimes hard to watch.
Blaustein paints a complex picture of professional wrestling and shrewdly transforms the ridiculous into the sublime.
A gritty and interesting look at life behind the wrestling scenes.
August 4, 2007Super Reviewer
If you liked The Wrestler, you'll like this documentary because its the same story yet its all true. And if you like wrestling, you'll like this documentary because its got lots of wrestlers and lots of wrestling in it. And if you hate wrestling, you'll like this documentary because it shows you exactly why you hate
January 3, 2010
Super Reviewer
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