Maybe a little picky, but this was probably a fair review. Good, but not great. However for me that might still put it as my second favorite wrestling movie, far behind Win/Win but ahead of Foxcatcher and Vision Quest IMO.
The wrestling scenes were OK. They did do a bunch of weird zooming into their hands and stuff. Maybe it was because they used Robles for some of the wrestling scenes, but I thought the guy that played him may have been the best non-wrestler that I’ve seen in a movie. There was a Q&A after it was over and he said he trained five days a week two hours a day for seven months with Robles. I know they said some actual D1 wrestlers were used as extras, but I didn’t recognize any.
I don’t really recall Charles, so I don’t know how accurately Cheadle portrayed him. My biggest complaint was the guy that played Tom Brands. I know Brands is one of a kind lol, but that guy wasn’t even close to an accurate portrayal.
Yes it was similar to a lot of cliche sports movies, but at least it was mostly a true story. I am also not super familiar with the specifics so not quite sure what was changed. I honestly didn’t remember that they announced ASU as being cut. Although the movie makes it seem like that caused the team to miss a season when I don’t believe it did. They also ripped off a scene from Rudy which if I had to guess didn’t actually happen (and IIRC didn’t even really happen in Rudy).
Overall definitely worth the free tickets though! My wife even said she liked it even though she says she “doesn’t like JLo.” They even gave out free popcorn and drinks, might have to check out more of these Amazon screenings…