My Review of "Golden Arm"

Golden Arm is a little bit of a surprise for me. I didn't realize it was released in 2020. When it showed up on Crave's streaming service I was curious what it was. Once I read the summary of the story I knew this was the movie for me.

This movie starts off with a rowdy woman named Danny. She's in a bar in an arm wrestling match with some local. She beats him hardy manner. Obviously her confidence is through the roof. As she's pumping herself she's calling out for other challengers and then this mean woman by the name of Brenda shows up.

Brenda takes on the challenge. Through cheating Brenda somehow wins while breaking Danny's arm in the process. It seems Brenda is on a tear of dispatching potential competitors so she can win a women's arm wrestling championship. Danny so happened to be the latest victim.

Then we meet the main character of the movie Melanie. She's down on her luck as well. Her marriage has dissolved and her bakery is in disarray. To fix everything up she's going to need a lot of money. That's when Danny comes into the picture. You see Danny was Melanie's best friend through school and they somehow parted by time.

Danny remembered back in school that Melanie had this amazing arm for arm wrestling back in the day and somehow convinces Melanie to come aboard with her on a cross country trucking business. Of course this is a ruse to get Melanie to replace Danny for the arm wrestling tournament.

The whole idea of the story is so ludicrous but absolutely hilarious to me. I love the fact that they used a lot of the old 80's movie cliches in this movie and put a twist to them. You can absolutely picture this movie made by men but it still works with women. They're well aware of themselves and even make fun of the male centric phrases that they use.

There's a great dynamic between the friendship of Danny and Melanie. One is the crazy wild one and the other is a strait-laced person trying to do the right thing. It kind of makes me go back to the days of Chris Farley and David Spade. These two actors did a great job in keeping the entertainment factor high.

They even add the whole obligatory training montage and all that we come to expect from sports movies. The only thing I kind of thought was really necessary was the romance aspect of the movie. It felt a little piped in and superfluous but all of the sports movies in the past had this. These things kind of go with the territory.

I also love the fact that all of these actors seem to be real ordinary people. They're not photoshopped supermodels making a movie. Everyone seemed to be genuine and it felt like you would see these people on the streets everyday. There's an element of reality in there even though this movie is far from reality.

Above all this movie is funny. The comedy is a little uneven in places but when it got me laughing it was belly deep laughing. Of course not all of the jokes will hit the mark but there are a few genuinely funny moments in this movie that I thought were hilarious. Those odd moments where it isn't funny can kind of really tank but there's not too many of them that would make me not continue to watch the movie.

Overall, I thought this movie was a great time. Yes it is an uneven movie where there are some pacing issues due to missed jokes. I can't blame them though. Not all jokes are going to work but the jokes that do hit, they hit hard. I think a lot of people will be able to enjoy this romp. You'll like it even more if you're into zany sports movies. I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. A very good effort and I hope they continue making different movies as well as they did this one.