This film contains a lot of simplistic and repetitious doubling. Wrestlers and lap dancers whose common enemy is aging. Both walking through corridors; mirroring those they traverse to get on stage. The lead couple quitting their jobs because of a lack of fulfillment. Mickey ROURKE playing a character who, like the actor himself, is staging a comeback. These are what give the film its emotional juice and make it worth watching.
That Rourke and Marisa TOMEI are brilliant performers is hardly worth stating – they always were. They play nascent lovers whose jobs are based on fantasy, but who are still going in opposite directions - despite their similarities. ROURKE plays a martyr who knows he is martyring himself, as the movie's referent comparison to Mel GIBSON's Passion of the Christ demonstrates – but not why he is doing so. However, although such things as the camaraderie of the gym are well shown, this movie never fully gets over the lack of insight into why the social milieu shown is the way it is. That, and the sluggish pacing, makes it something of a tourist travelogue of the lives of others.
Ultimately the central character has the problem that he cannot separate everyday life from his fantasies - as so many of us eventually learn to do. This causes all of the relationship problems he experiences - with his estranged daughter and would be lover - that he fully recognizes as being his own fault.
Copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
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