Beyond the Mat Reviews

WWF documentary is OK for older teens.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Am engrossing watch, but it's far from the most fascinating and incisive look at its subject.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Blaustein, Foley and Funk layeth the smack well and truly down.

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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.

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A gently and genuinely observed film whose subject is a garish, artificial display of mayhem.

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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.

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A very good film that both wrestling fans and non-wrestling fans will enjoy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

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.

Full Review | Original Score: B

A hilarious and heartbreaking documentary.

| Original Score: 4/4

Surprisingly riveting.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Unfortunately Blaustein isn't an experienced enough film-maker to make much of such material.

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...an easygoing, straightforward film without too many surprises

Full Review | Original Score: B-

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.

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Entertaining and twisted.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

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.

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The real meat of the movie comes in the many intimate moments that Blaustein's camera catches.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

This film's grizzled exterior masks a sensitive, family-oriented personality.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

It may be more than you ever wanted to know about the subject of professional wrestling.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10

This is a first-rate documentary, and one of the few which is worth going to the theater for.

| Original Score: 9/10

Funny and touching documentary.

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