Reversal

Whether or not you like wrestling, this movie is a good story about a parent pushing his kid too hard in athletics. The main character, Leo, is pushed by his father his entire life to be a great wrestler. His dad is even the high school coach. Leo, a district champion, faces a new challenge when a new wrestler, Thurman Ellis (played by Univ. of MO wrestler Jeremy Spates) moves to his town to challenge Leo in his weight class. Leo also struggles throughout the movie to make weight. Some of the scenes with Leo cutting weight shed a bad light on the sport of wrestling but it is an accurate depiction of what some wrestlers go through. This isn't another cheesy remake of Vision Quest. The acting is solid, the wrestling is outstanding and the story in interesting.

Fortunately for me I get HBO here in Thailand. I've seen this movie a few times, once while in Cambodia and once while in Thailand. This movie is a little syrupy and the acting is not the best but for some reason everything works and the movie turns out to be pretty good. I am a relatively new father of two and this definitely is a father's movie. Check it out.

Although, yes, some of the choices in this movie were difficult to understand for most people, it is because they have never been through what Leo went through. As a fellow wrestler this movie appealed immensely to me because i could identify with everything the main character was going through. The dropping weight, the dehydration, and the competition on the mat was depicted flawlessly in this movie because it was made by someone who understands what wrestlers go through. This is not an attack on you personally tommyboy16, but unless you are to go through stuff like dropping weight and starving, and training like that which was depicted in the movie, it will be difficult to understand, but that is not a reflection of the quality of the movie. The overall message appeals to everybody, but the little details of the experiences of the main character will most likely appeal to athletes more. That's all, enough said.

Jimi Petulla has done a more than noteworthy job of addressing the repercussions faced by parents who want their children to succeed, but sometimes go too far in trying to make it happen. Based on a true story, REVERSAL is about a father-son relationship and is told with high school wrestling as the backdrop.

As a lifelong fan of amateur wrestling, I thank Mr. Petulla for his authentic portrayal of the sport I cherish, and for attempting to show the world that the lessons learned in sport, especially wrestling, are transferable to life.

A decent movie that makes you think about athletics in general from a parent's perspective. This could be about parents wanting anything that they value for their child.

I felt the Dad was a good dad that was making the best with the hand delt him. He did not push his son without caring for him or without some reason. Some make the Dad look awful and that is not the truth. None of them had a great home life. He was not even the stereotypical father that was living through his son's victories becasue he was state champ himself. He just wanted his son to have a college education, that he did not have. He wanted more for his son than a mining job like him.

The wrestling was very good but you don't see that much sports action. I gave this movie a 7. I only gave it a seven for the fact that some of the choices were not how I think a human in that situation would choose. I also feel there were some situations in the movie not explained or were not real. The wrestling was real but some of the situations did not come off to me as real. The movie seemed to have an identiy crisis, it did not know what it wanted to be.