Blaustein, Foley and Funk layeth the smack well and truly down.
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07/31/08
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Beyond the Mat (1999)
82 %
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 65
Fresh: 53
Rotten:12
Average Rating: 6.7/10
Consensus: Even if you aren’t a fan, Beyond the Mat provides a riveting, perceptive look into the world of professional wrestling by taking a closer look at the people beneath the personas.
Runtime: 2 hrs 24 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
Synopsis: Filmmaker Barry W. Blaustein takes a look at the professional wrestling game at every level, from the hopeful, perhaps deluded beginners who spend their money on wrestling schools, to the lower... [More]
Starring: Terry Funk, Mick "Mankind" Foley, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Vince McMahon
Director: Barry W. Blaustein
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Reviews for Beyond the Mat
Documentaries are almost always more interesting if the filmmakers fess up about their relationship to the subject, as unabashed pro-wrestling fan Barry Blaustein does in this naively made, compelling homage to the sport.
03/23/07
Top Critic A gently and genuinely observed film whose subject is a garish, artificial display of mayhem.
03/23/07
Top Critic We tour the All-Pro Wrestling School in California and Philadelphia's fearsome Extreme Championships, but it's the studies Blaustein makes of several wrestlers that root the film.
06/24/06
A very good film that both wrestling fans and non-wrestling fans will enjoy.
05/26/06
Barry Blaustein takes a long, hard look at pro wrestling and, while not making me a newborn fan of the sport, he taught me the intensity and sacrifice of those who enter the ring.
04/09/05
Unfortunately Blaustein isn't an experienced enough film-maker to make much of such material.
12/03/02
turns out to be less interested in the cartoonish brutality of pro wrestling than it is with the lives of the people who make their living in the ring.
06/21/02
Top Critic Blaustein and his film have at least put a human face on those monstrous countenances that snarl out from our television sets on Saturday afternoons.
09/18/01
The real meat of the movie comes in the many intimate moments that Blaustein's camera catches.
03/24/01
If the film succeeds in no other way, it proves that these men are real human beings -- complete with noble aspirations and human failings in equal measure.
02/14/01
Top Critic For the first time in the history of our sport, a filmmaker has finally had the foresight to focus on the very contradictions that make professional wrestlers so damn interesting.
01/01/00
I guarantee you will never watch Smackdown without thinking about what is going on beyond the mat.
01/01/00
It's hard to explain why a movie about wrestlers is so compelling, but it's probably the same thing that makes the WWF itself so popular.
01/01/00
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The Rock Says
by: The Rock 8/22/00
by: The Rock 8/22/00
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