Going to the Mat (2004) (TV)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Stuart Gillard

Writers (WGA):

Chris Nolan (story) &
Laurie Nolan (story) ...

Release Date:

19 March 2004 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Family | Sport

Plot:

Jace Newfield has a problem. Besides being blind and being the new kid at school, his problem is that the kids at his new school thinks he's a jerk...

Plot Keywords:

Wrestling | High School Wrestling | Blindness | High School Athlete | High School Love

Awards:

1 win & 2 nominations

Cast

Andrew Lawrence	...	Jason 'Jace' Newfield
Alessandra Torresani	...	Mary Beth Rice (as Alessandra Toreson)
Khleo Thomas	...	Vincent Fly Shue
Wayne Brady	...	Mason Wyatt
D.B. Sweeney	...	Coach Rice
Billy Aaron Brown	...	John Lambrix
Brenda Strong	...	Patty Newfield
Brian Wimmer	...	Tom Newfield
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Big Budah	...	Referee #3
Scott Christopher	...	Mr. Kamins
Kelsi Cullimore	...	Violinist
Paul Dart	...	Referee #1
Daniel Henze	...	T-Rex Turner
Ric Johnson	...	Referee #2
T.J. Lowther	...	Luke
Christopher Robin Miller	...	Phil Pavone (reporter)
David Morales	...	Kevin Wilson
Marcus T. Paulk	...	Peter
Tim Sabuco	...	Wrestler Double
Michael Scott	...	Announcer
Sean Sekino	...	Nice Guy
Darin Southam	...	Yardley
Don Spainhower	...	Announcer #2
Murphy Stack	...	Girl
Nathan Stevens	...	Davey
Dennis Whimpey	...	Referee #4
Tim Whitaker	...	Boomer Cleason
Greg Williams	...	Referee #5
Brett Yoder	...	Mike

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Netherlands:6 | USA:G

Filming Locations:

Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

Quotes:

John Lambrix: Hey, Newfield. Why aren't you out there playing for the home team?
Jace: Oh, I was going to but my seeing eye dog kept pawing everyone's helmets off. HAHA!
John Lambrix: You're a funny guy.
Jace: Yeah, I don't see you laughing. Oh wait, you're the one who's supposed to be making all the lame blind jokes.

Soundtrack:

Going to the Mat

A family movie with a very nice message except it couldn't have come at the worst of times with it being Ray's year.

Parades of TV movies come out around this time of year from Disney. They usually are nauseating, painful, movie experiences, which would take hours to describe the endless horrible things about them. However sometimes, Disney does pull out the nice ones that are APPEALING and LITERALLY fun for the WHOLE family. I'm just saying: these buzz words are constantly thrown around with the advertisement of these films and it makes you want to hunt them all down for lying.

Andrew Laurence and his brothers haven't taken any attention away from Hollywood as of late and usually they go under the list of actors who are too lazy to do anything with their deadbeat careers. Andrew Laurence however does an average Disney film here and does a decent performance, however it could have been done in a better fashion to add more interest.

Jason Newfield (Laurence) is a blind teenager living in New York and is the drummer of a band with his friends. However when his family is forced to move away to Colorado, he must start anew as an unpopular blind kid. At his new school, his passion of music isn't nourished in the school band and the conductor (played by Wayne Brady) is keeping him quiet and uptight. However, what Jason doesn't know is that his conductor, Mason, is too a blind person. They teach each other new things from time to time in the film except since these are blind roles from Laurence and Brady with their eyes opened and just out of focus it loses its realism and its believability. Then Jason starts to get bullied by the wresting team of the school (very surprising even for an American high school to have the flagship team their wrestling team over their football team) so he wants to tryout. He does and with hard work and determination, he's on the team. He then befriends the captain of the team and starts to win many of his matches. The story however has a very predictable ending, much like ALL of Disney's TV movies. Never has someone been shot, killed, brutally beat, strangled, drowned, hung... etc. Not even something happening against what they want you to think...

Going to the Mat has a nice lesson behind the whole story that any blind man can do anything. However this film couldn't have come at the worst of times with Ray, starring Jamie Foxx, being nominated for Best Picture. It did a definitive much better job in showing a similar story except more appealing and more entertaining. Foxx actually was blind but Brady and Laurence had to fake it and at times, it wasn't realistic. Also, just the fact of a blind teenager wrestler raises an eyebrow and a lot could have been cut from the film.

Overall, Going to the Mat isn't a typical Disney TV movie but still has its elements of monstrosity. There are those nice performances from Brady and Laurence though. I can't really see these actors do any interesting movies in the future. It doesn't really entertain but it was an interesting experience. It was just obvious that once you were done this film, you'd be dying to watch/re-watch Ray.

My Rating: 6/10

Eliason A.