That’s right Hulkamaniacs! The greatest movie in the history of the WWE Universe is now on Blu-Ray, brother! No Holds Barred is a 1989 film starring The Hulkster playing a blond, muscly babyface wrestler named Rip (he’s basically playing Hulk Hogan, there’s no point in pretending otherwise), and chronicles his fight against an evil TV network and Zeus (played by Tiny Lister), a huge hardcore wrestler intent on destroying Rips career. This was the first film ever produced by the WWE, and it’s pretty much as cheesy, campy, and slightly homoerotic as wrestling was at the time.
The film was originally supposed to centre around “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, but Piper refused to be in the film so he could star in John Carpenter’s “They Live”. Vince McMahon had the script rewritten to suit Hogan for the lead, and filming commenced soon after. Hogan’s acting is kinda what you’d expect it to be. Considering his only real acting experience before this was playing Thunder lips in Rocky III (which also starred 2014 WWE Hall of Famer Mr T), his performance isn’t terrible, and he really didn’t have too much of a chance to screw it up since he’s basically playing himself. The other performances in the movie are actually fairly good, but the writing is really the main downfall; it’s just too cheesy to be anything but “So bad it’s good”.
Rip (Hulk Hogan) starts… Riping up?
The film was directed by Thomas J. Wright, who went on to direct episodes of the X-Files and even an Episode of Firefly. The film is quite well made. The sets look nice, the costume design is good, and the film’s shot fairly well. Yes it’s lowbrow and stupid, but it’s doing it intentionally, so you can’t really fault it on that. Ultimately, the film serves as a good example of wrestling in the late 80’s and early 90’s; kid friendly, non violent, and with clear cut faces and heels (except this movie contains no Ultimate Warrior, so it’s not as exciting as actually watching wrestling from this period).
But non for non wrestling fans, this film really holds nothing of value. If you don’t know who Hulk Hogan is then you won’t understand the irony of Hogans character being an over the top babyface, the Macho man Randy Savage appearance, and the smaller wrestling promotion that’s based around extreme violence (ECW anyone?). In short, you won’t enjoy the film.
Speaking about the Blu-Ray itself, I was a little surprised by the quality. With the release of the WWE Network, you’d think the WWE would remaster and retouch the film. but no, it appears as if the Blu-Ray is just the DVD transfer with a few extra touch ups. The sound is flat and not very well equalised, and I found myself having to constantly adjust the volume in different scenes.
OVERALL VERDICT: Definitely a buy for any wrestling fan or any fan of cheesy 80’s movies in general. It’s not Schwarzenegger good, but it’s still a solid, entertaining film.
