A fascinating short-form peek into the life and times of Ric Flair, statistical anomaly and pro wrestling royalty. There are a million reasons Flair shouldn't have grown into the phenomenon he became, from his parents' disapproval to the jet crash that nearly took his life to the hard-partying, absurdly alcohol-soaked lifestyle he embodied for four decades. Where normal men would take the hint and move on to another chapter of their story (or simply fall into the machine), Flair put his head down and bowled through the adversity. He used the hard times as motivation to come back even stronger, fuel for the construction of a legend that, in time, supported every last one of his outrageously boastful claims. No great reward comes without a price, though, and Flair's was steep. His own body may have been damn near indestructible, but that of his son, who idolized and modeled himself after everything his father stood for (the good traits and the bad), was not.
At just seventy-seven minutes, Nature Boy is an efficient, well-crafted documentary that screams right by and still feels like it hasn't even scratched the surface. Which should be expected, because how do you condense a forty-year career, never mind one with this many twists and turns, into slightly more than an hour? Flair, the Nature Boy himself, is startlingly frank about his years in the limelight, delivering the dirt in a pair of emotionally charged interviews that range from celebratory to confessional to tear-stained. His life has been vibrant, if not heartwarming, and when he's speaking it can be almost impossible to turn away, even if there is a certain doubt about the veracity of his claims. The way he lived, or more aptly the infamous way he spent, can make almost anything seem realistic. But as future WWE Hall of Famer Triple H reminds us in a pointed remark late in the film, he's almost as legendary a liar as he was a technician in the ring.
Review by drqshadowBlockedParent2020-01-30T16:25:35Z
A fascinating short-form peek into the life and times of Ric Flair, statistical anomaly and pro wrestling royalty. There are a million reasons Flair shouldn't have grown into the phenomenon he became, from his parents' disapproval to the jet crash that nearly took his life to the hard-partying, absurdly alcohol-soaked lifestyle he embodied for four decades. Where normal men would take the hint and move on to another chapter of their story (or simply fall into the machine), Flair put his head down and bowled through the adversity. He used the hard times as motivation to come back even stronger, fuel for the construction of a legend that, in time, supported every last one of his outrageously boastful claims. No great reward comes without a price, though, and Flair's was steep. His own body may have been damn near indestructible, but that of his son, who idolized and modeled himself after everything his father stood for (the good traits and the bad), was not.
At just seventy-seven minutes, Nature Boy is an efficient, well-crafted documentary that screams right by and still feels like it hasn't even scratched the surface. Which should be expected, because how do you condense a forty-year career, never mind one with this many twists and turns, into slightly more than an hour? Flair, the Nature Boy himself, is startlingly frank about his years in the limelight, delivering the dirt in a pair of emotionally charged interviews that range from celebratory to confessional to tear-stained. His life has been vibrant, if not heartwarming, and when he's speaking it can be almost impossible to turn away, even if there is a certain doubt about the veracity of his claims. The way he lived, or more aptly the infamous way he spent, can make almost anything seem realistic. But as future WWE Hall of Famer Triple H reminds us in a pointed remark late in the film, he's almost as legendary a liar as he was a technician in the ring.