You remember David Arquette, right? The actor from the Hollywood family that also boasts Rosanna, Patricia and Alexis Arquette? He was in Scream? Eight Legged Freaks? He married Courteney Cox? Yeah—that guy.
Anyway, turns out Arquette once had this -super-promising acting career until the year 2000, when he joined the WCW pro wrestling league as a promotional stunt for the not-very-good movie Ready to Rumble (also with Scott Caan…ugh) and became its Heavyweight Champion of the World. This set off a firestorm of hate among the wrestling faithful, who've spent the last 20 years hating Arquette's guts—and it almost certainly derailed his acting.
What's a guy to do? Well, according to the documentary You Cannot Kill David Arquette, the answer is to start wrestling for real, start training in earnest, hopefully to win the respect of…whoever…while simultaneously clearing out the cobwebs of mental illness and undoing two decades' worth of ire from the wrestling community. And it's a trip.
You Cannot Kill David Arquette didn't feel like it was worth the $19.99 rental on Amazon when it dropped a few months back, but now that it's found a home at Hulu, it's endlessly watchable in a trainwreck kind of way. Arquette produces his own redemption story, one in which he gets fit, travels to Mexico to train with luchadores, enrolls in a real-life wrestling school and ultimately finds himself while being accepted within the wrestling world. It honestly feels like a long con bit at first, but as scenes wherein backyard wrestlers seriously mess him up or even an ER visit that comes after a bout results in a nicked throat artery show, there's something to learn from the star of See Spot Run—homeboy is dedicated and, as the people who sincerely love wrestling are quick to remind you, even if it's akin to a play, it's still a sport (Arquette's athletics prove that, too).
We also get interviews with living Arquette siblings (RIP Alexis), Cox herself and Arquette's present-day wife, the journalist Christina McLarty. McLarty's insistence that hubs is for real lends credence to the journey, and it's heartwarming to see her support in action. Both give the audience even more of a reason to root for the guy. You'll almost surely come to respect Arquette by the end, and you'll appreciate how much he really, truly means it.
7
+Surprisingly entertaining and heartwarming
-Takes a good while to find its footing
You Cannot Kill David Arquette
Directed by David Darg and Price James
With Arquette(s), McLarty and Cox
Hulu, R, 91 min.
