(2008) Like the faked falls and punches in professional wrestling, the moves in this movie are predictable, though Mickey Rourke's acting comeback is for real. Bruce Springsteen sings the theme song for director Darren Aronofsky's reelization of Robert Siegel's screenplay.

After a heart attack (with by-pass surgery) and announcing he's retired, Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Rourke), buffed with steroids, his long yellow hair flying when he leaps from the ropes for his Ram jam, resumes his career with a rematch against The Ayatollah (Ernest Miller), 20 years after their glory days, in Wilmington, NJ.

Outside the ring he's a loser with his teenage daughter Stephanie, who tells him, "I don't ever want to see you again," when he forgets a dinner date after having made up with her after years of parental neglect.

In the real world he's a "broken-down piece of meat" behind the deli counter, serving potato salad, chicken by the piece, and ham slices. Wearing a hearing aid and glasses, needing drugs for his aches and pains, he gets locked out of his mobile home and sleeps in his van when he can't pay the rent.

Seeking sympathy - "I don't wanna be alone" - he goes to a strip joint to see a pole/lap dancer, Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), who compares him to Jesus in The Passion of Christ when he shows her his scars but draws the line: "I don't go out with customers." But then she makes an exception as Pam, the single mother of a nine-year-old boy, agreeing to help him pick out a present for Stephanie as well as share a beer, a song by Guns 'n Roses, and a kiss; he gives her an action figure of himself for the kid.

Oh, yeah, she shows up for the big rematch, of course, but can't stop him from doing the only thing he knows how to do.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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