No Holds Barred

No matter how low your expectations are going into this absurd late 80s Hulk Hogan vehicle, it's quite likely to limbo right under them.

Hogan is the "star", but he actually gets very little screen time, disappearing for large chunks of the film while the focus is on the villain of the piece played with a "Hey, it's a paycheck" glee by Kurt Fuller. When he is on screen, Hogan struggles playing a character that is more or less the same one he'd played for nearly a decade in the WWF.

None of this would've mattered much had the film at least given us some entertaining wrestling moments and perhaps a few good montages set to cheesy rock music, but it can't even seem to do that right.

'No Holds Barred' is awful even by the standards of low budget late-80s wrestling movies, of which it may be the only one.

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 *****

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.

My review was written in May 1989 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

A disappointing big-screen vehilce for wrestling champ Hulk Hogan, "No Holds Barred" should nonetheless birng out the Hulkster's legions of fans to generate good opening but wobbly legs this summer for New Line.

Despite pro wrestling's renewed popularity in recent years, the films about grapplers have all flopped, even with casts including Sylvester Stallone, Roddy Piper and Sgt. Slaughter.

Here Hogan plays himself, still the World Wrestling Federation champ (pic's executive producer is WWF's head honcho Vince McMahon). He's nmed Rip for story's sake. He strikes the same poses, makes the same grimaces and uses the same holds the fans are accustomed to, and is even accompanied by the same announcers (in cameos): Mean Gene Okerlund, Jesse (The Body) Venturaa and Howard Finkel.

Extremely lame plotline has tyrannical tv network boss Kurt Fuller unable to coax Rip away from a rival ewb. Fuller' countermove i to telecast live tough-guy contests, with muscular and mean black wrestler Tiny Lister emering the winner. In cliched fashion, Rip must meet Lister (as Zeus) in the octagonal ring while a race against the clock goes on to find his kidnapped girlfriend (Joan Severance) or Rip will have to "throw" the match to save her pretty neck.

Fan are bound to be disappointed by the uninteresting wrestling action on display here poorly photgraphed to boot. Toilet humor abounds and far too much footage is devoted to Fuller' wimpy, bumbling henchmen Charles Levin and David Palmer.

Best scenes, sure to please smallfry, are when Hogan as Rip takes his rassling into the street and applies it comicbook-style to smash up limos and anyting else in his way.

Unfortunately, Hogan's acting is poor, his line readings lacking any conviction. His talented and beautiful leading lady Severance has to carry all their scenes together, including a misjudged homage to Frank Capra's famous Walls of Jericho bedroom scene in "It Happened One Night".

As archvillain, Fuller closely resembles Bill Murray in "Scrooged", but overacts unbearably. Lister, with frightening crossed eyes, is physcially right but tuck with unfortunate stereotyping, as is the rest of the film's black cast. An engaging and funny supporting role is essayed by another pro wrestling champ, Stan (The Lariat) Hansen.

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.