And Zak loves wrestling and Zak saw The Salt Water Redneck lift men over his head and throw them out of the ring and Zak wanted to lift a man over his head and throw him out of the ring because that’s the beauty of wrestling and this is also a film about Zack Gottsagen and Zack Gottsagen is an actor and before he was an actor he was a man with a dream to be an actor that didn’t see himself represented on screen and Zack met Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz who wrote this film and they fell in love with Zack and they wrote this film for him and there’re lots of similarities between Zack the person and Zak the character because Zack loves wrestling too and it’s this blurring of the lines between what’s real and what’s scripted that makes this film special and this film warms your heart which is a rare feeling these days and it’s nice to be reminded that there is good in the world and this film is full of good and that’s not to say that there’s no bad in this film either because there is and this film is set in North Carolina and North Carolina is in a beautiful part of America that gave birth to bluegrass music and this film has a great bluegrass and folk soundtrack and Gregory Alan Isakov is featured on the soundtrack and he makes beautiful music but North Carolina is one of the states that is suffering with an opioid epidemic and this late stage capitalist reality is starkly present in this film and that is evident as Zak is a 22-year-old man that lives in a retirement village and the nursing home doesn’t care about him they only care about their bottom line, but the people that take the time to know Zak fall in love with him and wrestling is a billion dollar industry and Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in October 2018 by the Saudi regime and one month later the WWE held an event in Saudi Arabia because it’s a business and businesses value money over people and people are angry about that and there is a palpable anger at times in this film but never from Zak because Zak is full of love and Zak loves wrestling and even with all its flaws wrestling can be beautiful like when Kofi Kingston won the WWE title at WrestleMania and this was an inspiring moment because Kofi is an amazing wrestler and Kofi never got his due and Kofi was overlooked for guys who were a little bit taller and a little bit stronger and maybe because their skin was a little lighter too and Zack is brilliant in this film and this is Zack’s first feature film and Zack was overlooked for years because Zack has down syndrome but Zack never gave up and Zack followed his dreams and Zak is overlooked and thanks to help from Bruce Dern and some grease Zak hilariously escapes from the retirement village and Zak follows his dreams and I just want to spend a minute talking about Bruce Dern because Bruce Dern is having a brilliant 2019 with memorable roles in this and in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Brad Pitt takes his top off in Hollywood and Shia LaBeouf takes his top off in The Peanut Butter Falcon so it’s a great year for topless scenes too and Shia was seen as someone who could be the Brad Pitt for a new generation and he starred in huge blockbuster franchises like Transformers and Indiana Jones but then he was discarded by Hollywood but he’s a star in this film and there’s a scene when he punches a kid in the face and that scene made me really happy because Shia LaBeouf punching a kid is a funny scenario but also because the kid was a dick and he deserved it and there’s a scene in this film when Zack and Shia are alone together on a boat as the sun is setting and Zack wraps his arm around Shia and tells him that he’s going to give him all of his Birthday wishes and that was the moment when I knew that I was watching something special because in this moment it wasn’t the characters talking to each other it was the two actors and this scene was filmed after Shia was arrested for being drunk and disorderly and Shia has said that this moment changed his life and you can feel that energy radiating off the screen and Shia seems so happy in every interview he does to promote this film and there is a real love between him and Zack and, Dakota Johnson gives a really warm performance in this movie too and a lot of people think of Dakota Johnson as the girl from Fifty Shades but she’s so much more than that and she might be in an Elaine May movie so hopefully that will change things and Mick Foley is in this film and Mick Foley is a wrestling legend and Mrs Foley’s Baby Boy should have never been the WWF champion and this was such a laughable idea at the time that rival promotion WCW broke the news live on air that Mick Foley was going to win the championship belt and this backfired completely because people changed the channel just to see Mick win that belt because people love an underdog and Jake the Snake Roberts is in this movie and it’s incredible that Jake the Snake is even alive because wrestling can be a cruel business and wrestlers put their bodies on the line to entertain fans and sometimes their bodies break and sometimes when they try to fix their bodies they get addicted to painkillers and many wrestlers have died young and somehow Jake wasn’t one of them and he lived to act in this movie and that’s amazing and Mick Foley and Jake the Snake are Zack’s two favourite wrestlers and Zack got to work with them because he never gave up and in the movie Zak never gives up and he embarks on a sprawling Stand By Me inspired adventure and I watched Stand By Me on my 13th Birthday which is the perfect age to watch Stand By Me so that film means a lot to me and maybe this film caters to my interests which is why I really liked it but, maybe it’s because of Zack and how inspiring he is and because of Zak and how inspiring he is and every morning I stand shivering at the bus stop on my way to college as five packed buses pass by without slowing down and I stare at the mountains that are so close yet just out of reach and I think about leaving everything behind and just going to them and I never do because that type of thing only works in movies and that’s what happens in this movie as a young man with so much to live for is told to sit around and watch life pass him by and he refuses and he runs and even though Zak can’t swim they travel by water and it is in the water that Zak is given new life and truly starts living and in the film Shia LaBeouf says he’s more of a baptised-by-fire guy and then they are baptised by fire and they become family instead of friends and from that fire The Peanut Butter Falcon rises and Zak meets The Salt Water Redneck but now he’s not The Salt Water Redneck he’s just Clint because wrestling can be a cruel business and life is often cruel and Zak will have to go back to the nursing home and sometimes life can surprise you and sometimes people surprise you and Shia says that Zack brings about a kindness in people and Zak brings about a kindness in Clint and once again Clint becomes The Salt Water Redneck because wrestlers never really retire and he trains Zak to become a wrestler and then Zak achieves his dreams of lifting a man over his head and throwing him out of the ring and Zack achieved his dreams of being an actor and this is a film about Zack and Zack loves wrestling.