Jimbo-96

Sitting through this film was torture. Of course, some people like this sort of stuff and that is fine as I am sure there are some thoughtful insights into the Hitler character. In the future, I will stick with the excellent, but redundant World War II documentaries.

Make no mistake, this is an art house film that the general population looking for general entertainment, will be sorely disappointed. It's not surprising that more people gave this film a 1 than any other rating, as of this writing. Maybe, I could of gave it a 2, had not the Hitler role been terribly over acted. At least, this film was in predominately in color.

I believe that this film was produced using 16 MM film stock instead of the conventional 35 MM or greater we normally see in theaters. This was a little disappointing, but since most people will watch this film on their TV sets (it bombed in the theaters), it won't make any difference.

Overall, I liked the result, but I am not sure that non wrestling fans will agree. This is probably the best of several good (and some bad) wrestling documentaries produced during the past few years. Since they are all covering similar territory, that is, they are all real-life documentaries, they all tend to blend together. Only the names of the wrestlers change. The Jake Roberts segment was a major turn-off for me. The one where I flushed my career by using drugs and alcohol and alienated my family. I really don't need to spend that much time with Mr. Roberts. These type of destructive individuals are not very interesting, just depressing. I would give Beyond the Mat a 7.

I had very low expectations for this film, but it was excellent through out. I think the film was set in the late 50's, but I am not really sure. As per the film, tickets then were $4 per game and players made approximately $10,000 for 7 months work. Better players made a little more. Players then, still made 50-100% more than average workers. I remember paying $2 to see ice hockey games, with Joe Public, in Baltimore (highest minor league). Today, I would have to pay $60 and travel 50 miles to Washington, D.C. to join the wine and cheese crowd. So, considering that, and the fact that players now average upwards to $2 million per year, I was prepared to be unsympathetic to the theme of this film. The theme being unionization of the players. On the other hand, the players of that era were vastly under payed. With my pre-existing beliefs nicely balanced, I could watch this film with an open mind. The film flowed nicely, without the Director injecting boring art house stuff in order to please the high brow, stuffy movie critics. I had no idea where the film was going or how it was going to end. I would give it 9 stars and a G rating. I am not willing to accept everything I saw in the film at face value. I am sure some facts were changed to manipulate audience opinions. No mention was made of the NFL where players were in the same financial boat.

The next time the NHL players go on strike, you might want to pop this movie in the VCR. Under this circumstance, Net Worth would only be worth 7 stars.