No Holds Barred

Hulk Hogan must have gotten other movie offers from other studios - so upon seeing his choice for his first starring role, you have to wonder why on earth he picked this one! Could the other offers been even worse than this? Seeing that the "trivia" section for this movie states that he found the original draft unsatisfying and rewrote it without credit, you also have to wonder how it was originally.

Whatever the case, the end results are really bad... but so bad that they are often hilarious to watch. Now, the movie was done somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the acting is so over the top... the plot is so simple-minded and unbelievable... that you can't accept the majority of the hilarity as intentional.

If you can stop laughing long enough to study the movie, you'll see just how badly made it is. The editing is terrible - it's obvious a good number of scenes (containing a good amount of explanation) are missing, and other scenes are clearly chopped down to a fraction of their original length. This may explain why there's barely a feeling Hogan is the star of the movie - there are long stretches when he's nowhere in sight, and he actually doesn't get to do as much as you might think. (It doesn't help that in some long shots, he appears to be replaced by a double.) And while Hogan seems to have aimed the movie towards his youthful fans, the violence level (including attempted rape, savage beatings, and death) makes the movie a questionable choice for this age group.

Mind you, it's not supposed to be, but it is. As a wee tot, I watched this movie in the theatre (Being a huge wrestling and Hulk Hogan fan). All I remember from the night is we were the only ones in the theater, and that I didn't really like it very much. I blacked the rest out, and for good reason.

A poor film on par with the greats like "Gymkata" and "The Pumaman," "No Holds Barred" is a movie set in the high stakes world of pro wrestling. Well maybe the stakes aren't all that high...and quite frankly I feel dirty just calling these people "professionals" at anything. And really, except for the first scene, there's no wrestling to speak of. So I guess movie is about the marginally low stakes world of amateurish beating-the-c***-out-of-people. Sounds good, right?

Hulk Hogan plays Rip, the champion of the WWF (Never let it be said that Hulk Hogan was typecast, this and movies like Thunder in Paradise showed how he challenged himself with deep roles that really pushed the limits of his talents). Essentially he's playing himself, but with a wardrobe that's more black and blue than the Hulkster's red and yellow. He also has this hand gesture he does. It's kinda like the ozzy devil sign people make at rock concerts, except you stick your thumb in the air, and you curl your index finger in. My friend claimed that it was supposed to look like an "R." Try and see for yourself. If that looks like an "R," well, then, Mars needs women. But anyway.

Kurt Fuller, with his overacting detector obviously on the fritz, plays a TV exec with his slightly homoerotic heart set on getting Rip, who's evidentally bigger than Elvis, on his network. He won't have any of it (And exits the office with a triumphant hand gesture to no one but the camera), and so the movie follows Fuller trying to boost ratings and get back at Rip. He does so when he creates his brilliantly titled "Battle of the Tough Guys." Marketing genius, this guy.

From the numerous hand gestures, to the rather idiotic fight scenes (All played as if wrestling is very real and deadly serious) to the overacting, to the far too frequent shots of Hulk in nothing but undies, this movie has everything you'd ever want in a dumb movie. It's frivolous, not too taxing on the mind, violent, and includes the phrase "What's that smell?" "DOOKIE!" "Dookie?"

A classic for all time.

Hulk Hogan does it again a great movie with great acting, directing, and lighting. Hulk Kills people in this movie he electrocutes one guy. Hulk will be in the acting scene for another 50 years i'm sure. Hulk is a hungry young actor in 10 years he will blossom into a rose of an actor. No Holds Barred will take us into the next Millennium.

Let's face it, "No Holds Barred was a movie made to cash in on the big wave of Hulkamania and for the kids who were fans of Hulk Hogan, it must have been a dream come true. For anyone else, "No Holds Barred" is a painfully stupid watch with plot so unbelievably dumb and requiring such huge amounts of suspension of disbelief to even partly accept it as a reality. It does resemble a movie, but that's almost all it has going for it. To anyone who saw this as a kid, it may be nostalgic, but to any wrestling fans or people looking for a "so bad it's good movie" this is not it. It has a few scenes of that kind which will make you laugh in disbelief, but other than that, it has nothing going for it. Watch only if you are gigantic wrestling/Hulk Hogan fan or don't mind killing your brain cells. 5/10!

What a horrible, horrible, horrible movie. The plot is paper thin, the acting sucks, and there's nothing redeemable about this movie at all. Seeing this movie is almost as painful as getting a root canal without anesthetic. Even die hard wrestling fans (like myself) want to forget it ever existed. It's just a horrible reminder of the wretched rock 'n wrestling connection, and the most selfish wrestler ever to take a year off to do a horrible movie that started the lamest feud, and some of the worst matches of the 80's and part of the 90's. -***** stars out of *****