No Holds Barred (1989)

"I WON'T be around when this check clears! "

Changing careers in entertainment can be tough; some stars have enough natural talent and charisma to go from being an actor to a singer, or vice versa. Others try and broaden their horizons, only to be met with scorn and ridicule. Many for good reasons. For every Will Smith or Mark Whalberg success story there is a Madonna or Paris Hilton lurking in the shadows. Quite a few wrestlers have attempted the cross over in the last couple of decades, all with varying degrees of low to mid-level success. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson doesn't seem to be going anywhere at this stage, and even Rowdy Roddy Piper is still getting regular film and TV work. It makes sense in a weird Hollywood way; sure they are big muscled guys who get beaten up in the ring every week, they perform as characters (acting, right?), they are popular and recognisable around the world... surely a transition to the big screen couldn't be that hard?



Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, had his shot at the spotlight outside the ring in the mid-to-late 80's, which somehow stretched into the early 90's too. He had a better chance than most to make it work; it was the glory day of the action movie, big musclebound lug head leading men were in fashion and a few guys were already starting to make the cross over. So what happened? Where did it all go wrong?

Hogan stars as Rip, the muscled bad ass who is dominating the ratings across the board. He plays up the tough guy in the ring, but really he has a heart of gold, as he takes care of his younger brother since their parents died. Having his brother, Randy (Mark Pellegrino; Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, Prayer of the Roller Boys) ringside is what keeps him going when things get rough for him. However, all this success is making rival network exec, Brell (Kurt Fuller; Waynes World, Ghostbusters II) extremely angry; he wants Rip the 'jockass' fighting on his channel, one way or the other. He invites our hero in for a discussion on fees, but when Rip refuses, Brell goes crazy and starts threatening him. Bad move. After forcing him to eat the blank check, Rip leaves and is promptly attacked by Brells hired goons. After smashing them all to bits, he carries on as if nothing has happened. 

Brell decides he needs to beat Rip at his own game. After visiting a rowdy wrestling bar filled with giant hairy guys pummelling each other for beer, Brell has a brainwave. He concocts an event called 'Battle of the Tough Guys', in which they will broadcast the fights to find the toughest man in the world. This will leave Rip no choice but to face opponents on Brells network. Genius, eh? Brell has also sent a hot young exec, Samantha (Joan Severance; Bird on a Wire, Hear no Evil, See no Evil) to try and win Rip over. She soon is falling for Rips charm though, and can see he's a decent guy by the amount of charity work he does. 

The Battle of the Tough Guys soon shows a true champion emerging from the sweat and beards; the mighty Zeus (Tommy 'Tiny' Lister; Armed and Dangerous, Prison, Universal Soldier). He is violent, cross-eyed and extremely dangerous; the exact kind of talent Brell has been looking for to challenge Rip. After Brell hires a rapist to have a shot on Samantha (Rip gives him some Harley Davidson justice) they take off to do some more charity work, which Zeus crashes via helicopter. He challenges Rip to prove his honour in the ring, with Rip once again refusing. Soon after Randy has a bad encounter with the wild Zeus, resulting in hospitalisation for the poor lad. Rip is finally pushed over the edge, and agrees to do the show. Will he overcome the suffering of his crippled brother? Will he rescue Samantha from Brell? Will he finally beat Zeus to death?

If I can say anything about No Holds Barred, it's that it's an entertaining film. Sure, it's dumber than most things in existence, but it's still entertaining. It has plenty of fights, both in and out of the ring, some reasonable action, the Hulkster in his red tight underpants, hairy redneck wrestlers laughing at corporate execs and their small penises, Zeus trying to look angry, mean and scary whilst being cross eyed, and a very lengthy climatic fight for the title of 'Tough Guy'. Speaking of which, why call it 'Battle of the Tough Guys', seeing as it sounds little the wimpiest thing out there? Surely the screenwriters could have worked in, you know, 'No Holds Barred'? Oh well. We also get an attempted rape, a long drawn out scene of Samantha in her underwear, and Randy looking hilarious whilst in his coma as Rip gives him a bath. 

Saying all that, it isn't a very good film. Hulk Hogan has zero range, delivering most lines in a deepthroated monotone. Even when he is trying to be gentle he looks like a goon. The climatic scenes where he is facing up to Zeus are surprisingly bad, with his exaggerated grunts and whimpers bringing laughter more than anything else. 'Worried' wasn't the best facial expression he had in his portfolio, that's for sure. Tommy Lister somehow fares even worse than Hogan though; his attempts to be scary are pretty embarrassing, and the few lines he has are delivered terribly. The rest of his screen time is just him growling and making intense faces. Kurt Fuller hams it up wonderfully though, he does his best to balance out the silliness with a very over-the-top performance which works fairly well. Joan Severance hardly sets the screen on fire, but she does ok. Not much to work with, I guess. We also get some welcome appearances by Jesse Ventura and Gene Okerlund. Director Thomas J. Wright would go on to a healthy career in TV, working on such shows as Millennium and The X-Files. He keeps the action scenes rocking along, and manages to wrangle a little tension out of the climax.

The Hulk had a promising start on the big screen with Rocky III, but he shows here he really had no leading man credentials. Sure, he looked the part (though the 'tache and skullet combo is pretty distracting), but he just couldn't act. He followed this up with Suburban Commando a few years later, and nosedived with the horrific Mr Nanny and the straight-to-video disaster, Thunder in Paradise. He just didn't have that glimpse of charisma that got the likes of Arnie and Jean-Claude Van Damme through the slower moments in between the skull crushing. Sadly for Hulk Hogan, the cardboard performances might have been enough to get him through WWF matches, but the cinema going public were much more unforgiving.