NO HOLDS BARRED

US, 1989, 98 minutes, Colour.
Hulk Hogan, Kurt Fuller, Joan Severance.
Directed by Thomas J.Wright.

No Holds Barred, in the tradition of Bad Guys and Wrestlemania, is for wrestling fans only. It has a basic Rocky-style plot - but focuses on the artificiality as well as the bodily contact and violence of wrestling.

The film is a vehicle for the popular American wrestler, Hulk Hogan, who acted as co-producer. It presents him in several bouts, an attempt by a mad network executive to buy him to promote ratings. However, he is a man of integrity. With his brother, to whom he is devoted, with the advertising woman with whom he falls in love (and then discovers that she was sent to seduce him, but he loves her nonetheless), he is taunted into moving away from his charity work with children and going into a competitive, televised (pre-fixed) bout with a maniacal wrestler called Zeus.

The film is basic in its plot, in its characterisation - though Hogan himself makes a good enough fist of his particular role (even making the romance somewhat credible). Joan Severance brings a bit of glamour to the role of the advertising agent (she appeared in See No Evil, Hear No Evil).

The film has a great deal of satire on the networks, their desperate work for ratings - especially in a fanatical administrator of the network and his sycophantic assistants.

However, the main thing is the wrestling, especially the deadly bout with Zeus. For wrestling fans only.