100 beers and a lot of heart: 'Andre the Giant' stands tall in HBO documentary

There’s practically no end to the clichés just itching to be broken out when talking about Andre the Giant.

Or, more specifically, “Andre the Giant,” Jason Hehir’s terrific HBO documentary film about the late, great professional wrestler, who stood ... well, there’s some debate. Seven feet tall? Two or three inches taller? And 400 pounds? Or was it 500?

It depends on who you ask, and Hehir asks a lot of people, including Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair, among many others. If specifics on his real size are iffy, suffice it to say that everything about Andre was larger than life, and there we break out our first cliché.

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Professional wrestling has occupied a kind of weird place in popular culture, bridging the gap between sports and entertainment, particularly once it gave up the ruse that it was “real.” (The broken bones and torn muscles certainly tend to be, if not the storylines and outcomes.)

The rise of pro wrestling

There was a time when matches were held in church basements; now WrestleMania events are basically all-star rock concerts with body slams and figure-fours instead of guitar solos. That transition took place under McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment); McMahon turned what had been a regional entertainment into a more-unified national presentation.

Andre the Giant was one of the transitional figures in that shift. And yet, in some ways, he isn’t known for that, a recognition that more often goes to McMahon and Hogan. In some circles, Andre is regarded more as an anomaly, capable of downing 100 beers in a single night, a gentle giant who could dispatch an opponent with ease and Fezzik, the giant in “The Princess Bride.” (He drank constantly, director Rob Reiner says, because he was in constant pain.)

Of course, he was all that and more (another cliché appears). Born Andre Roussimoff in a French village, he grew quickly, abnormally (eventually he would be discovered to have acromegaly, the condition that caused his enormous size). He began training as a wrestler in his teens and began traveling. He worked the circuit in Canada and eventually the U.S. He was all but impossible to defeat, of course, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Promoters had to move him around from region to region so that he didn’t wear out his welcome, throttling one opponent after another.

(This answers a question I had watching wrestling as a kid: How come Andre would show up for a few weeks, then disappear and then come back? Off to another circuit, following one of the iron-clad rules of showbiz: Leave them wanting more.)

Hehir, who has directed four of ESPN’s “30 for 30” films, uses Andre’s story to tell the story of the rise of wrestling, with which it coincided. The sport grew, and Andre was a major part of that, though his health would begin to decline as its popularity really began to soar.

Wrestling is full of outsized characters, both literally and figuratively, but Andre is the biggest. Hogan talks about his admiration for him. Wrestling isn’t really a place for tough guys, he says — they’re really entertainers. If anyone did try to prove himself tough, Andre “straightened them out pretty quick.”

There are many tales of Andre’s epic drinking, his flatulence, his kind demeanor. He owned a ranch in North Carolina to which he escaped during the rare times he wasn’t traveling. But the emphasis is on Andre in the ring, or at least on tour. And even without more biographical information, it’s pretty fascinating stuff.

WrestleMania III bout with Hulk Hogan

The best and most-interesting segment deals with WrestleMania III, the 1987 event in which Andre would take on Hogan. There was a lead-up story in which Andre turns bad (he’d always been a beloved good guy), drumming up interest. The concept, as McMahon and Hogan saw it, was that Hogan would defeat Andre, the torch would be passed, and wrestling would become even bigger. Everything was in place, except the script for the match itself. Hogan drew up an outline on a legal pad the night before, but left the finish blank. Would Andre go through with the plan? He wasn’t saying.

By then, Andre’s health was becoming a problem. Hogan says Andre couldn’t do much, and he often propped him up in the ring during the bout, although if fans could tell, they didn’t mind.

Andre would die of a heart attack in 1993 at the age of 46. He declined treatment for acromegaly, fearing it would interfere with his wrestling career. There’s a melancholy feel to the story, despite the hype and energy surrounding the sport Andre would devote his life to. It makes “Andre the Giant,” already a fascinating tale, more so. It’s a must-see movie for wrestling fans, of course, but also for everyone else.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

'Andre the Giant'

10 p.m. Tuesday, April 10, on HBO.

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