My Review of 'Fighting with My Family'

I don't think the movie, Fighting with My Family, was even on anyone's radar when it came to the theatres. Hardcore wrestling fans would of course flock to this movie, but would a general audience be interested in this movie?

I used to be a big wrestling fan. I kind of stopped around the end of the "Attitude" era with Degeneration X and the NWO. It was fun and I wasn't the only one that was totally into it. My friends and family would watch it too. I'm not totally sure why I stopped watching wrestling. I just stopped all of a sudden. Maybe I got busy or something. Years later I did try to get back into the WWE, but I barely recognized anyone. It changed so much.

Now this movie came out. I wasn't so sure if I'd get into it, but the premise of the movie was fairly interesting.

Fighting with My Family is based on a family obsessed with wrestling from Norwich, England. The parents were saved by wrestling when they got together, and they built a wrestling organization of their own.

The parents even got their children into wrestling much to the dismay of their daughter. Although she eventually gets into it as well. Wrestling is in their blood after all. The family continues to train and perform together under the family's wrestling organization. Their dream of course is to star in the WWE.

It so happens that the two kids, Suraya (played by Florence Pugh) and her brother Zac (Played by Jack Lowden) have auditions to the WWE tryouts in London. Their older brother had tried out and failed. He ended up in prison for acting out when he was declined by the WWE.

The two siblings try out, and the WWE only take one person from the whole tryout, Suraya. It's been more of Zac's dream to become a wrestler than Suraya, so Suraya pleads with the WWE coach (played by Vince Vaughn) to allow her brother to join the training camp with her. He refuses her pleads, and this is where the drama starts comes in.

Surprisingly, there were a lot of stars in this movie. They had Vince Vaughn, Lena Headey, Dwayne Johnson (of course) and Nick Frost. There are also a few WWE superstar cameos sprinkled in there but that's to be expected.

The start of the movie felt a little off. It definitely has a made for DVD feel much like you'd expect from a WWE movie. I started regretting my choice when it first started, but soon I warmed up to the movie. It got good pretty fast. Introductions to characters is always an awkward thing to do in movies. It's easier said than executed on film.

I liked the story arc that they did for the brother Zac. Suraya's storyline is pretty stereotypical of all motivational movies, but Zac's story arc was a pretty refreshing take on the "chase after your dreams" motivation. I'm actually surprised not a lot of movies try to take this idea and expand on it.

Overall, I would say I had a really good time watching this movie. I'm glad I didn't watch it in the theatres, because I don't think this is a movie theatre worthy movie, but it is entertaining nonetheless. For me I would give this movie a seven out of ten. If you're a hardcore wrestling fan I wouldn't hesitate to recommend watching this movie. I think hardcore fans will truly appreciate the movie, and have a much better time with it. This is especially true because this movie is based on a true story and wrestling fans probably already know of Suraya' s story.