BY MIKEY MIGO
How did I not know about this 1985 professional wrestling mockumentary? I’ve seen it done more recently in the movie “Kayfabe”, but this movie was much more in vein of a “Spinal Tap”. It wasn’t on par with “Spinal Tap” and to be honest, I think I liked the newer “Kayfabe” more as well. This movie was just sorta messy. It had some really funny premise points and I like the idea of this movie a whole lot. My problem is just that it wasn’t all that entertaining. The movie starts with footage from a match that saw “Mad Dog” accidentally decapitate his opponent. This leads to Mad Dog going away with rumors of his death being spread around. A new wrestler shows up named “The Mask” and he has a lot of the same features and moves as “Mad Dog”. This is what the movie is about. Is “The Mask” REALLY “Mad Dog”? We’re taken on a documentary journey of a filmmaker and a super fan going around and trying to investigate this situation. The company decides to host a 10 man Battle Royale to crown a new champion. We’re slowly introduced to a few of the contenders and the mystery of “The Mask”/”Mad Dog” continues. It was cool to see some wrestlers like Dick Murdoch and “Exotic” Adrian Street show up, but all in all it was big mess. It tries to be “Spinal Tap”, but it has an over top cheese to it that also feels like “Deathrace 2000”. The journey sees some fun promos. Eddie Guerrero’s brother Armado rocks it as “El Toro”, but the character isn’t as big of a role as it should have been. The flow of the movie just sucks. The action shots are hard to follow too. Despite there being so much promise when the movie starts, it just sorta goes on and on. As a fan of old school wrestling, it was a treat to go down memory lane. As a fan of good movies, this was a really long 89 minutes. See it if you’re an obsessed wrestling fan, pass if you don’t know who Pedro Morales is. C+
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