NOW IN THEATERS AND VOD! If you grew up watching professional wrestling and maybe even found that you have an unhealthy obsession with it (especially for an adult), Raging Midlife should be on your radar. This comedy could almost be considered a “coming of middle age” tale, but it’s just too silly to be taken that seriously.
The opening of the movie is slightly misleading as it drops you in the middle of a professional wrestling show in the late 1980s, a la WWF/WWE. We’re treated to a plethora of callbacks and imitations of the characters that all had their heyday in that period, from “Not Randy Savage” to “Not Chief Jay Strongbow” and plenty more. In fact, the focus of the entire picture is based on the fictional wrestler Raging Abe (Motch O Mann), who is clearly a direct copy of Randy “Macho Man” Savage, but with an Abe Lincoln beard and stovepipe top hat. The actor who portrays him is actually a real-life Macho Man impersonator, as you could probably surmise from his tongue-in-cheek nom de plume, “Motch O Mann.” To add to this, instead of Randy Savage’s girlfriend, Miss Elizabeth, Raging Abe has “Mary Todd” (Paula Abdul). Get it? GET IT?
The main characters of Raging Midlife are best friends Alex (Logan Dillard) and Mark (Gio Calandrella). The young kids begin their journey when Raging Abe tosses them one of his signature “RAGE-A-MANIA” tank tops from the ring. Alex catches the shirt but quickly loses it. That’s when we are introduced to his mean sister Mindy (Emily Sweet), who grabs the shirt and tosses it into the crowd of Abe’s opponent’s fans. We have now identified Mindy as the villain.
“…Raging Abe tosses them one of his signature ‘RAGE-A-MANIA’ tank tops…”
Cut to modern day, with middle-aged Alex (Nic Costa) and Mark (Matt Zak), who have been obsessed with finding one of these shirts ever since that fateful day when his sister destroyed their lives. Mark finds one in an online auction, setting off a montage of failed attempts at trying to steal the shirt from the person who won it, nearly getting them thrown in jail more times than we can count. The kicker? Alex’s sister Mindy (now an adult played by Emily Sweet) has grown from being an evil child into an even more evil adult. She goes to comical lengths to prevent them from achieving their lifelong goal of finding their precious.
While there is definitely an air of learning to grow up and move on with your life in this film, it never allows you to linger that long on such a serious thought, instead choosing to knock you out of your deep thoughts with a flying elbow right to the funny bone whenever it gets that chance. And if the chance doesn’t present itself naturally, it will barge in through the side door or an open window every chance it gets. There’s a great soundtrack of pop, alt, and punk music that will definitely catch your ear. I found this interesting, as they could’ve just relied on a soundtrack of 80s-style music to push the point home but chose to go their own way.
Writers Nic Costa and Rob Taylor present a brilliant effort with Raging Midlife, choosing not to make a standard comedy, but aiming straight for the hearts of not just wrestling fans, but anybody who’s ever had a love that they wish they didn’t have to grow out of. I would’ve loved to see an extended view into the 80s world, but that’s not to say what we got was any less great.
"…a tribute to the 1980s, professional wrestling, and never falling out of love with your childhood."
