Brett P
This documentary taught me so much about Andre and his life. As a kid, I was always a huge fan of the WWE so I obviously knew who Andre the Giant was but I never gave it any thought about how Andre was able to live during his day to day life. Watching this made me realize that it he unfortunately lived a very uncomfortable and depressing life. He was just too big to be comfortable in any furniture, cars, planes, etc. To make it worse, his career as a WWE wrestler was 50% travel. On top of all that, he had to live with that fact that his disease was slowly killing him and that he won't live much passed 40. It was truly heartbreaking to learn this information about a man I viewed as a legend as a child. The documentary is very well-made. It features interviews from some of the most legendary figures in WWE history such as Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon. The story of his life if paced perfectly from beginning to end. They also show footage of Andre as a teenager before the fame. It was crazy to see him not as tall and not nearly as heavy as he was during his prime in the WWE. We also get to learn a lot about the early days of wrestling entertainment which I never knew. This was overall a fantastic documentary that shows Andre's heartbreaking life story.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
03/23/23
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russell h
Great interviews and footage. Very interesting and sentimental.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
Being a wrestling fan, I couldn't help myself but love this amazing documentary based on one of wrestling's most iconic figures.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/08/23
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isaac m
Andre The Giant is a perfect documentary that focuses on the life and career of Andre The Giant. I love everything from the people who were interviewed to the footage from WWE and other wrestling companies. I never saw a good documentary that really touches the themes of being different and becoming who you are no matter what you are. Overall, this HBO documentary really touches Andre The Giant on a high note.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
I wasnt alive when Andre was but watching the princess bride as a kid, and watching his wrestling highlights was amazing! same with this documentary about his life was just amazing. He truly was a tough guy but also had a heart of gold
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/16/23
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stephen c
A fitting tribute to a man who was genuinely one of a kind
On March 29, 1987, the most significant pro-wrestling match of all time took place at WrestleMania III in the Pontiac Silverdome, in front of 93,173 fans, as Hulk Hogan (the greatest of all time then and the greatest of all time now) defended his title against former best friend, André the Giant. It's not the greatest contest of all time; for a WrestleMania main event, it's very short (12 minutes), with Hogan extremely restricted as to what he could do with André, whose mobility was severely compromised and who was in immense pain due to acromegaly. But it didn't matter, because the match culminated with Hogan doing the impossible and slamming André.
Which brings us to Jason Hehir's excellent documentary, the emotional high-point of which is that match. Sure, it's not always successful in its attempts to separate the man from the myth, often falling back on the very mythological elements it's trying to sidestep, and it's neither as insightful nor as objective as one might wish. However, it's respectful, informed, and entertaining, avoiding hagiography, and featuring some superb archival footage.
Choosing to forego a narrator, and using only archival footage and talking-head interviews, Hehir allows the interviewees to tell the story. During pre-production, he and producer Bill Simmons decided to include only material which had been directly witnessed; there was to be nothing anecdotal; "we were only going to have first-person accounts. So, if someone said, "I heard André drank 156 beers," well, were you there? If you weren't, it's not gonna make it in. But when Ric Flair says "he drank 106 beers in front of me", that makes it in." This affords the documentary a sense of personalised intimacy – every interviewee is talking about things they saw rather than things about which they heard – which works towards Hehir's mission statement of depicting the man rather than the myth.
In this respect, one of the most important sections is the disappointingly brief depiction of his time in his adopted home of Ellerbe, NC, which is where Hehir is most successful in dividing the man from the mythos. André loved living there because he could be himself and because he was left alone – he could be a regular citizen. This comes in the middle of a section about how logistically difficult André's life was (as Flair points out, he couldn't put on a disguise and stroll around New York, and as Hogan explains, everything was too small for him, rendering mundane tasks such as eating in a restaurant hugely difficult). The Ellerbe section is one of the most low-key, moving, and human parts of the documentary, and it's the only part where hyperbole seems entirely absent.
Another moving section concerns the making of The Princess Bride. In a direct rejoinder to colleagues who humorously extol his legendary drinking, Cary Elwes points out that André drank as much as he did because he was perpetually in so much pain. Along the same lines, director Rob Reiner and actress Robin Wright discuss how surprised they were at how difficult André found it to perform even the simplest physical tasks (a pseudo-wrestling scene with Elwes had to use a (hilariously bad) stunt double, and for a scene where he catches Buttercup (Wright), she had to be supported on wires because André couldn't hold her weight.
In this sense, although the tone is never melancholy, André's story does emerge as something of a tragedy – not because he failed to achieve his dreams, but because in doing so, he dissuaded himself from availing of the aid that could have lengthened his life, and would certainly have eased his suffering.
In terms of problems, the most egregious is Hehir's failure (for the most part) to disentangle André Roussimoff from André the Giant. Hogan, Flair, WWE owner Vince McMahon and, André's best friend, Tim White all talk about the man behind the persona, but none of them knew him before he became André the Giant. This is why the Ellerbe section and the brief material on his life in France are so important, as they speak to who he was rather than who we believe him to be, with many of the (probably hyperbolic) stories fitting more comfortably into the image of André the Giant than the life of André Roussimoff. Additionally, more than likely due to WWE's direct involvement, there's nothing even remotely negative said about the company, although Hogan does point out that André probably shouldn't have been in the ring at WrestleMania III. The implication is that McMahon may have exploited André's passion for the business, but this is buried under more mythologising and is quickly forgotten.
Nevertheless, this is a very fine tribute. André was vitally important to an industry at a pivotal crossroads, and the film captures why he was such a compelling character, able to elicit pathos (and later antagonism) from wrestling audiences the world over with relative ease.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
Full Review
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