No Holds Barred (1989)

First thing’s first, I’m sorry about the late post. I simply didn’t have time over the past week to prepare a post. So, this one’s going to be going up probably around the same time as the next one. Maybe even the one after it. Barring any other scheduling issues, this shouldn’t happen again this year. Well… Maybe it’ll happen at Christmas, since that falls on a Sunday this year. Hopefully not, though.

Most movies have similar story structures. There’s a protagonist who the audience follows as they journey outside their comfortable life. They overcome some obstacles, which cause them to slowly change as a person. When they come out the other side, they’ve changed forever. It might be a good change, or it might be a bad change. That doesn’t matter. They changed. There’s also an antagonist, though this sometimes gets a little murkier. The antagonist could be another person, the environment, a darker side of the protagonist, or society itself.

Sometimes, this protagonist and antagonist relationship doesn’t play out quite the way it should. Instead of the protagonist having the story arc that drives things forward, it’s the antagonist. The antagonist does things that force the protagonist into situations, even going so far as making the choices for the protagonist. The protagonist might not have any change. The antagonist, however, becomes the emotional brunt of the story. They change, usually for worse, as things play out.

No Holds Barred was one of those backwards movies. Rip (Hulk Hogan) was a major star in the World Wrestling Federation. Brell (Kurt Fuller) was the head of a rival network, jealous that the WWF was bringing in such high ratings for his competitor. He attributed this success, or failure on his part, to Rip’s popularity. When he couldn’t sway Rip to his network, Brell created the Battle of the Tough Guys competition. One star of that competition was Zeus (Tiny Lister), a near psychopath who was willing to beat people to death just to be on top. Brell threatened everyone in Rip’s life with Zeus, until Rip was forced to fight Zeus to stop Brell.

Rip wasn’t much of a character in No Holds Barred. He was a star wrestler who was presented as a popular tough guy. He mentored children. He had a brother who supported him wholeheartedly. Yet, he didn’t have any goals. All of Rip’s aspirations had been achieved by the time the movie started. He had already become the top of his profession. He didn’t have anything to drive him forward. Everything happened to him. He never caused anything to happen.

Brell, on the other hand, had the goals and aspirations. His desire was to make his television network more popular. The first attempt Brell made at popularity was his attempt to sign Rip. He brought Rip into his office, offered him a blank cheque, and told him to sign. Rip refused, and that set Brell off for the rest of the movie. Brell took a couple board members to some dive bar where people were fighting in a makeshift ring. That inspired Brell to start Battle of the Tough Guys, a fighting show with real people instead of wrestlers. Not that No Holds Barred portrayed wrestlers as sports entertainers. It treated them like real tough guys as well. WWF just happened to have more spectacle and less brutality.

The strange thing about Brell’s popularity was that it wasn’t enough to satisfy his desires. Battle of the Tough Guys became a huge hit as soon as it began. But Brell wanted Rip. Even though Zeus was arguably tougher than Rip, Brell wanted Rip. He felt burned by Rip refusing his offer early in the movie. Attackers were sent after Rip, and Rip fought them off without any trouble. One guy even filled his pants with dookie because of how tough Rip was. Brell was embarrassed that Rip wouldn’t work for him and vowed revenge, sending Zeus after Rip and Rip’s brother.

Rip wasn’t out to take down Brell. His goal wasn’t to destroy Brell or Brell’s career. Rip simply wanted to live his life as a WWF Superstar. The driving force of No Holds Barred was Brell ruining Rip’s chill. Brell offered Rip a job, which Rip turned down. Then Brell decided that he had to destroy Rip’s life. He was vindictive. He was violent. He was mad. None of it was necessary, but it was what drove everything. Brell was the character driving the story forward. Brell was the character with the arc of finding fame and needing to hold that power above the person who denied it to him in the first place. Rip was simply a bystander, presented as the main character.

And that was where No Holds Barred was backwards in its storytelling. Much like some other movies I’ve covered for Sunday “Bad” Movies, the main character was passive. Ninety percent of the things Rip did in the story were things he was pushed into by Brell’s actions. Rip fought Brell’s cronies and took on Zeus during the climax, but it was always Brell who pushed the story forward. Rip simply reacted to the things. Guys came after him? He fought. Zeus injured his brother? He fought. That was basically it. He didn’t have anything he was going after to push the story forward. He wasn’t even trying to stop Brell. He was just going about his daily life. Rip should have been the driving force of No Hold Barred, trying to stop the bad guy. But he wasn’t. It was Brell’s story.

The protagonist of a story should be the driving force of said story. Their actions should be what moves things forward. It’s equally important for the antagonist to cause some of the choices to be made, but it should be the protagonist’s choices that move the story from one beat to the next. When that balance is flipped, so that the antagonist makes all the choices while the protagonist simply reacts to them, the story feels off. There’s a disconnect between the audience and the protagonist. They no longer engage in quite the same way.

That usually makes a movie worse. When the audience is no longer invested in what the main character is going through, because the main character feels like a bystander to their own story, it takes away from the overall quality. The story doesn’t quite feel right, and audiences can pick up on that. They can sense when something is off. They can sense when a movie is bad. Most of the time.

Now let’s get a few notes in here:

• Tiny Lister has been featured in six Sunday “Bad” Movies. They were The Human Centipede III (week 180), Santa’s Slay (week 263), The Wash (week 303), Street Corner Justice (week 391), Wishmaster2: Evil Never Dies (week 410), and No Holds Barred.
• David Paymer played one of Brell’s guys in No Holds Barred. He was also in Howard the Duck (week 75) and Perfect (week 195).
• Jesse Ventura and Jeep Swenson were in both No Holds Barred and Batman & Robin (week 138).
• You may have noticed Lisa M. Barfield in The Single Moms Club (week 179) and No Holds Barred.
• The star of No Holds Barred was Hulk Hogan. He also starred in Santa with Muscles (week 211).
• Harri James returned from Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (week 480) for No Holds Barred.
• Finally, Mark Pellegrino was in No Holds Barred and Say It Isn’t So (week 481).
• Have you seen No Holds Barred? What did you think? How do you feel about Hulk Hogan as a movie star? Share your thoughts in the comments or have a conversation with me on Twitter.
• Find me on Twitter or in the comments if you have a movie you want to suggest for a future Sunday “Bad” Movies week. I’m open to suggestions. I like suggestions.
• The next post will be an interesting one. I’m not sure what to think of the movie. I saw it. I definitely saw it. Anyway, I’ll be checking out The Mangler as the first horror movie of this October’s posts. If you want to see what I wrote about it, come back for the next post. I’ll see you then.