You Cannot Kill David Arquette (CREDIT: Super LTD)

Starring: David Arquette

Directors: David Darg and Price James

Running Time: 90 Minutes

Rating: R for Wrestling Blood and Man-Butt

Release Date: August 28, 2020 (Drive-In Theaters and On Demand)

I don’t want to kill David Arquette! But it sure seems like some hardcore wresting fans do. A bit of essential background: while Arquette was promoting his 2000 wrestling comedy Ready to Rumble, he was given the WCW World Championship belt, which apparently was a historically unpopular decision. That’s the instigating factor for the documentary You Cannot Kill David Arquette, in which we see the star of Scream and Eight Legged Freaks attempt to actually make a legitimate go of a grappling career. For most of his public life, he’s been dismissed as a total goofball lightweight, and he doesn’t refute those accusations. Instead, he absorbs them as he attempts to transform into something else.

If you only know of Arquette through his most well-known movie roles, you will certainly see a new side of him here. Not an entirely new one, though. He still very much has an eager-to-please puppy-dog vibe through and through. And the hulking physique he adopts feels more like a shiny coat of paint rather than a full-on metamorphosis. But the impression that really lingers is the obsessive motor that drives Arquette to his core. He mentions at one point how he hates growing up, but I think what he really hates is letting go. Once he has decided who he is going to be and where his journey will take him, he literally cannot see any obstacles in his way to that goal

There’s a point in YCKDA when Arquette is finally going full-bore in the ring, with his face relentlessly covered in blood, and I cannot help but wonder: why? Why put yourself through that? Is it truly worth it? I know what Arquette’s answer is, and I know that it is very different from mine. That assumes, though, that he even bothers to stop and ask himself these questions, instead of just plowing forward with blinders on. Stories like You Cannot Kill David Arquette frighten me. That might be on purpose. It’s tough to watch what Mr. Arquette is putting himself through, but I do believe that he’s calling out to all of us to take witness of him.

You Cannot Kill David Arquette is Recommended If You Like: The bloodiest parts of The Wrestler, the gnarliest circuits in pro wrestling, Famous people putting themselves through a gauntlet

Grade: 3 out of 5 Heel Turns