Review of Pulling John (2009) by Jl F — 07 May 2010

1 Disc Widescreen Edition (2010) being released May 11, 2010.

"Pulling John" was directed by Vassiliki Kohnsari and Sevan Mattossian. This documentary was shot in over four years in Japan, Ukraine, Russia, Canada, Poland, and the U.S. about the personal stories of three athletes in the world of Armwrestling: All-American Champion John Brzenk and challengers Alexey Voevoda from Russia and Travis Bagent from West Virginia.

As a fan of professional wrestling and obscure sports in general, Armwrestling is appealing in its own unique way. It is a sport of great amazing strength but also technique and strategy. There are several different maneuvers you can use against your opponent to gain the upper edge besides the size of your biceps.

John Brzenk started in arm wrestling at a very young age and after finally beating his father, he began competitions right after high school. The older footage of Brzenk around age 18 is very funny because of his haircut but what is astounding about his career in this sport is that he remained the undefeated world champion for twenty-five years. Even more impressive is that he competed in Heavy Weight class and was able to defeat Super Heavy Weights to become World Class Champion. After so much success, Brzenk was undecided on whether to retire while still on top of the game or to fade slowly into the dust. He ultimately decides to get back into the game and go up against these other two titans getting lots of buzz. He still works his job as an airline mechanic because of the free airplane trips it affords him.

23 year-old Alexey Voevoda comes from a long line of military heroes and in Russia, arm wrestling is government supported. Alexey is a hero to his country and his support system is amazing with all the people around him to help him train in a dark, basic gym set-up. In one scene, it shows Alexey facing one opponent while two others are pulling at full force to aid the opponent and give Alexey more resistance to face and he still pulls it off and beats them. His intense strength and ability is intimidating. He has a Taoist perspective living in the present with great focus going into competitions.

Then you have 26 year-old Travis Bagent who is a colorful character in his own right. He is a master of trash talk and intimidation with his opponents and is a beefy guy to boot. He also was raised in the sport of arm wrestling working his way up to defeating his father as Brzenk did. He is a family man and lives in West Virginia and is an ordinary good ol' boy in many ways but with a much bigger ego that he uses to jazz himself up for every event with the ultimate dream of defeating John Brzenk. You'll either love him or hate him and I found his competitive thread appealing and funny. Both Travis and Alexey respect John to the maximum and more than anything else, they both want the opportunity to defeat the great legend and dethrone him and take his place at the top. Travis and Alexey are super heavy weights and long to defeat John at the Zloty Tur Championship in Warsaw, Poland.

When each man wins, he celebrates at his own level of intensity: Alexey calmly stoic, Travis off the wall yelling, and John somewhere inbetween. What's more important is how each takes defeat and they are fantastic losers, immediately congratulating their opponent. This documentary tells a great story with transitions, music, and even added animation to help explain the sport better in a very entertaining way for the average layman. This movie succeeds in building tension and actually getting the viewer excited about the sport of arm wrestling and who is going to win. You become very invested in these characters as people and there is a well-balanced perspective on each of them so you're really cheering for each of them at different times and that is quite an accomplishment for this IndiePix movie.

Bonus Features:

There is feature-length commentary with director Vassiliki Khonsari and Champion Armwrestler John Brzenk. They ask John a lot of questions about what is going through his mind during certain matches and how he trains. John Brzenk admits that he was very close to retirement before being approached for this documentary due to an old busted elbow injury giving him trouble. This film gave him a new lease and more energy to get motivated and back into the field again where he continues to armwrestle today. The director and producer also speak a lot about what Travis and Alexey are like in person on and off camera. Both are multi-faceted people who present themselves in a certain way in competition but have a softer side to themselves.

There is also a cute little "Pulling John" graphic comic included in the DVD case. It's only a few pages but really builds up the drama of the story into that super hero world. There are a few additional trailers and also over 50 minutes of additional scenes cut for time. Over 600 hours of footage was taken over four years to make this film and the filmmakers find it amazing that they cut it down to a 72 minute film when it could have easily spanned 6 hours. The additional scenes reveal more about strategy in the sport, training, and family moments.