Its not hard to understand why some viewers would dislike this movie, since less than .1% of the worlds population ever wrestled in a competitive environment.
But, for those that have, and for the friends and parents of those wrestlers, this movie is a solid 9/10 rating. The movie hits on every aspect of this sports tortuous rigor: losing weight every week, not eating, training, and the mental gymnastics involved with having to believe that you can beat anyone at anytime.
And most realistically, this movie also shows the hardships of doing what every other high school kid does, in combination with the rigors of the sport. They have love relationships, they have classmates, they have to deal with the teachers and coaches, as well as their own family, plus they have to deal with their own teammates each week who may want to take over the top position at their weight.
As one who had over 100 high school matches (15 years before the making of this movie), I can confirm that there is no better movie than this about high school wrestling. When you rate this movie you should not think about how good it is among all other movies, rather you should rate it solely based on its ability to achieve the objective of accurately portraying its subject.
I guess that some would think Louden is not a "team player", but wrestling is an individual sport, no matter how others would want to portray it (although if you win your team gets points). Now that this diatribe (which it might be to some) is about over, I will summarize as follows: Do not watch the movie if you don't care about seeing an exceptionally good story about high school wrestling, you won't like it!
But, for those that have, and for the friends and parents of those wrestlers, this movie is a solid 9/10 rating. The movie hits on every aspect of this sports tortuous rigor: losing weight every week, not eating, training, and the mental gymnastics involved with having to believe that you can beat anyone at anytime.
And most realistically, this movie also shows the hardships of doing what every other high school kid does, in combination with the rigors of the sport. They have love relationships, they have classmates, they have to deal with the teachers and coaches, as well as their own family, plus they have to deal with their own teammates each week who may want to take over the top position at their weight.
As one who had over 100 high school matches (15 years before the making of this movie), I can confirm that there is no better movie than this about high school wrestling. When you rate this movie you should not think about how good it is among all other movies, rather you should rate it solely based on its ability to achieve the objective of accurately portraying its subject.
I guess that some would think Louden is not a "team player", but wrestling is an individual sport, no matter how others would want to portray it (although if you win your team gets points). Now that this diatribe (which it might be to some) is about over, I will summarize as follows: Do not watch the movie if you don't care about seeing an exceptionally good story about high school wrestling, you won't like it!