Blocking out the Hader’s

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 Trainwreck (2015)

Written by Caleb Madden

Whenever I was a kid my parents didn’t really want me to watch wrestling. They always claimed that it was too violent. Or maybe it was the culture at large that kind of spooked them. But that hardly stopped me from being quietly interested in WrestleMania Monday Night RAW.

Naturally, I picked a movie with a wrestler that comes straight from my childhood era of WWE. Today we are talking about Trainwreck.

Blocking out the Hader’s

Trainwreck is a dramedy that was released in 2015 directed by the famous Judd Apatow. The film follows Amy Townsend (Amy Schumer) who has a frat boy outlook on life. She bounces from one night stand to one night stand, smokes a lot of weed, and drinks a lot. She eventually is tasked with writing a story on Dr. Arron Conners (Bill Hader) and she finds herself falling deeply in love with him. 

Now before we dig into what I love about this movie I need to talk about how I first watched this film. In 2015 I was 17 years old and just getting to the age where my parents thought it was okay for me to start “sitting at the big kids table” so to speak. This meant that I could watch more R-rated films, particularly raunchy comedies (sorry mom and dad, I was already doing that for some time). But because of this my parents, wishing to get some credit as the “cool” parents, took me to a screening of Trainwreck with them. If you have seen Trainwreck you know just how wild this decision was. There is a scene 30 minutes into the film where we watch Amy Schumer have sex with John Cena. And I watched it with my PARENTS. Now, I see a therapist to specifically help me recover from this.

You Can’t See Me

Trainwreck is full of amazing cameos from various famous athletes due to Dr. Conners work. In fact, one of the best performances came from LeBron James himself. But what I find to be truly impressive in this film is John Cena’s work as Amy’s long time booty call Steven. This was one of John’s first steps into serious acting endeavors. If you watched WWE at all in the early and mid 2000s you certainly know who John Cena is. Famed for his U.S. Marine shtick in WWE, he was a pretty stellar wrestler but that’s besides the point. 

What is really great about John in this film is his total and complete commitment to be the butt of the joke. With so many other wrestlers that make the transition they often want to either play serious or, like The Rock, create a persona around their career as an actor. John just isn’t interested in that here. It is clear that he wants the industry to know that he is serious about acting and he doesn’t mind getting dirty. And the result is an absolutely incredible comedic performance from someone who you wouldn’t really expect it. 

Judd

I actually think that this is probably Judd Apatow’s best movie. Not just because of Cena but the entire cast is so locked in through the whole thing. Even LeBron is throwing strikes the whole time. This movie is so freaking good and definitely worth the watch.

Today’s Scene